A pub owner charged two customers an extra ‘entitlement’ for a Sunday carvery after they left most on their plate.
Grandmother Verity Farmer questioned being charged an extra £4.80 after opting for a £12-a-head carve at The Star Inn in Vogue, Cornwall, with her daughter.
‘I’ve never heard anything like it before,’ he said in a post on the Newest Newquay community Facebook page.
But landlord Mark Graham, 62, described the number of people left as ‘pure rubbish’ and pointed out signs at the popular pub warning that ‘so much rubbish can be charged for’.
He told MailOnline that the pub has a clear policy on the £12 all-you-can-eat carvings posted on the wall.
Mr Graham said: ‘I just think he has an entitled way and thinks he can do whatever he wants.’
Mark Graham, 62, made the decision after he noticed the two women had left a lot of food behind
Left-over meals cost £2.40 at The Star Inn
‘As well as bar staff, I’m also a chef. I went out and spoke to them and explained the charges for such a large amount of waste,” he added.
‘One of them said he couldn’t eat everything and I told him I’ve seen him pile up about two meals worth of food on one plate and then just leave it all.’
Mr Graham explained that he introduced the policy after the lockdown as the pub trade struggled to get back on its feet.
‘After COVID there was a lot of waste that happened. We open more than one ‘all you an eat’ where we do curry nights, Indian nights, etc.,” he said.
‘People are just filling their plates so high that it’s dripping over the edge and we’re starting to get rude.’
Mr Graham, who has worked in pubs since he was 14 and has been landlord of The Star Inn for 20 years, added: ‘I speak my mind and that’s how it is. It was the first time we had to pay a fee and the first thing I did was send my staff back to ask if everything was okay.
‘Customers say the food is very good and it is. I couldn’t care less about the few potatoes left behind. It’s just stupid, so much garbage that bothers me.
He continued: ‘We’re just a timeless village pub.
‘I heard to make life, not make kill. I don’t rip people off. But it’s a two-way street and customers need to be fair as well.
‘I was serving a carvery that day and I remember they had plates that were sky high with food, so high you could have put a ladder on the side and put a flag on top!’
The Star Inn in Cornwall is an award-winning pub that offers a wide range of dishes for punters
He said the two women only went up to the carvery counter once, but added: ‘There are easily two portions of food on each plate’.
Mr Graham took a picture of the plates showing they were filled to the brim with slices of meat, two roast potatoes each, plenty of vegetables and some crackling.
He said the small surcharge would only help cover the cost of raw materials but would not cover the cost of the equipment used to make the food or pay employees.
‘You can take as much as you like, return as much as you like and as the old saying Navy said, you can fill your boots. Whatever you want, don’t waste it,’ he continued.
‘We ask people to eat their plate’s worth, then come back for more and instead of eating it, they ask for a box to take away.’
He said the pub was happy to accommodate such requests from the ala carte menu, ‘as the price is calculated’. But he added on Facebook that his ‘excess food’ policy is ‘only for all-you-can-eat where you serve yourself.’
Verity Farmer one of the customers who paid extra complained on Facebook saying: ‘Just to carve Sunday at Star Inn, Vogue, St Day.
‘We paid £12 each for a meal, and when we got the bill we got an extra £4.80 when we asked about it, they said they didn’t eat all the food. I’ve never heard anything like it.’
Since her post there have been more than 400 comments, including one from The Star Inn account, which read: ‘We’re just trying and making sure there’s enough food for everyone.
‘I’m sure if you were a customer during the day and I had to tell you that I didn’t have any food left for your order because it was all wasted and went into the bin, you wouldn’t be too happy and would make it. other social media posts too.’
