How much is too much? Or rather how much is too much for £12? That was the question for champion freebie-takers Andy Miles and George Dalmon recently as they achieved the egregious feat of actually being thrown out of their local all-you-can-eat buffet for eating too much. Man, did these guys go for it: two visits a month for two years, eating the Brighton-based Mongolian restaurant into its own private food famine like two ravaging Pac-men. They have been banned from ever crossing the threshold again. Like, didn’t you guys realise the restaurant has to make money off you, not the other way round...?
To be fair, the advertising at Gobi exhorts you to take your chosen ingredients of seafood, meat and vegetables to the grill where it is cooked for you and “then repeat as many times as you wish!... All for a set price of £12.” In theory, they abided by the letter of the law; in fact it was probably that pin-point precision that got them chucked out as five bowls each was judged to be an excessive execution of that simple invitation.
The whole sorry case raises some interesting points, however, about manners, our attitudes to food and its value both monetary and corporeal and the uneasy relationship still to be found between the hospitality industry and its patrons. It’s hard to say who’s right and wrong in this scenario: on the one hand, isn’t the all-you-can-eat invitation predicated on the tacit understanding between all parties that it’s really all-you-can-eat-in-three/four-courses-or-until-you’re-comfortably-full-rather-than-vomiting-like-a-Roman? Anyone abusing it can be upheld to be greedy and cheap. On the other hand, don’t say what you don’t mean. If you don’t wish customers to starve themselves all day before visiting your restaurant so they can fill their boots and those of their children and possibly even the car too, then don’t put it out there. Someone will always abuse your kind and generous nature...
...which segues nicely into our attitude to food at these sorts of places. To be piling your plate high time after time (after time after time...) gives off an unattractive air of in-your-face gluttony; that you couldn’t give a monkey’s what exactly is being served up here, just pile it high and fill your face because food is fuel in the same way that time is money and don’t waste a second appreciating it for what it is or how it’s been prepared, let alone your surroundings or fellow diners. You’re not here because it’s a chance to sample some different cuisine at a really great price; you’re here because this way you don’t have to eat before or after for some time and hey, if you drink tap water, the second plate and anything afterwards is pretty much free! Yippee!
Just to give context here, a Chinese restaurant in South Shields was in the news earlier this year for charging customers £20 for any food left on the plate at its all-you-can-eat buffet in a bid to eliminate food waste. Quite apart from the obesity-promoting message this sends, we shudder to think how else they were tackling the waste problem (Sunday’s recycled prawn balls anyone?). It seems customers tread a fine line in enabling the restaurants to make a profit. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t...
The buffets were introduced to pull customers in at tricky times of the week, promoting the food and hoping to invite regular custom from its diners at more conventional prices and times. Some avoid them like the plague, possibly because in actuality they know getting near the damn thing takes elbows of sharpened steel. However, that doesn’t mean that those who do take up the offer should be treated quite so harshly. Let’s face it, the Gobi management team had observed these guys filling their boots (and probably held an in-house spread bet) 48 times over the last two years and hadn’t said anything. Maybe enough finally was enough. Maybe the manager had lost just too much in that spread bet. But branding your paying customers “filthy pigs” seems a tad disingenuous not to mention short-sighted. Restaurant Golden Rule #1: Don’t make your customers nervous. Abuse is never cool.
