Hotel Food and Drink: Beyond Dining and Room Service

[elfin]

Stayed at a major chain hotel this week and on the breakfast table were 4 jars of preserves-marmalade, grape, boysenberry and strawberry. These are the mini jars for one time use. I wanted to take them home (unopened) for two reasons-my little girls would have gotten a kick out of them either for eating or playing with their play kitchen and tea sets. The other reason is a jar of jelly simply sits in our refrigerator until it grows green and I throw it out. The small one time use jars are perfect for our occassional need. I am not one who pilfers sweet n low packets or other things that restaurants frequently find missing. I could have opened them all and 'sampled' them on my toast thus the hotel would have thrown them out anyway. I am sure that if I asked the server if I could take them she would have said yes. But I left the table empty handed. Would it have been ok to take (or ask to) the jars home?

[highchef]

I always take them home when they come with room service, mainly because I feel like I've paid for them. They're usually other flavors besides the grape I have on hand for the kids, and then I get to have something different at home for the adults without buying a big jar.

Taking them off the table in the resturant would give me pause, but hey. I'll bet if you ask, it'll be fine.

It does crack me up when I see people filling their pockets and bags with the sugar etc.. it reminds me of my college days. We never bought catshup or sugar. Anything on the table was fair game back then. I hope I'm never in a position like that again.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Dunno about you folks, but my "good knapkins" are embossed with the logo Wendy's ... they match the beige "good silverware" with the same inscription ... veddy classy!

[joiei]

I always take them home when they come with room service, mainly because I feel like I've paid for them. They're usually other flavors besides the grape I have on hand for the kids, and then I get to have something different at home for the adults without buying a big jar.

Taking them off the table in the resturant would give me pause, but hey. I'll bet if you ask, it'll be fine.

It does crack me up when I see people filling their pockets and bags with the sugar etc.. it reminds me of my college days. We never bought catshup or sugar. Anything on the table was fair game back then.  I hope I'm never in a position like that again.

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This can get to be a great expense for a restaurant. In Florida, during the winter, a lot of restaurants do not put the packets on the table because the snowbirds will take it all assuming incorrectly that they have paid for all the packets. If you ask the server for a couple of jars for your kids, I am sure it will be not a big deal. But when you go through a couple of cases in short order, it drives up cost of doing business.

For a while, I worked in a gourmet kitchenware store and I will not get into all the stuff the snowbirds stole from us. And their reasoning was that without their business, we would go broke, they almost drove us broke with the stealing. But that is another soapbox. Sorry.

Back to the packets, use what you need and leave the rest, don't pack them home.

[highchef]

I always take them home when they come with room service, mainly because I feel like I've paid for them. They're usually other flavors besides the grape I have on hand for the kids, and then I get to have something different at home for the adults without buying a big jar.

Taking them off the table in the resturant would give me pause, but hey. I'll bet if you ask, it'll be fine.

It does crack me up when I see people filling their pockets and bags with the sugar etc.. it reminds me of my college days. We never bought catshup or sugar. Anything on the table was fair game back then.  I hope I'm never in a position like that again.

←

This can get to be a great expense for a restaurant. In Florida, during the winter, a lot of restaurants do not put the packets on the table because the snowbirds will take it all assuming incorrectly that they have paid for all the packets. If you ask the server for a couple of jars for your kids, I am sure it will be not a big deal. But when you go through a couple of cases in short order, it drives up cost of doing business.

For a while, I worked in a gourmet kitchenware store and I will not get into all the stuff the snowbirds stole from us. And their reasoning was that without their business, we would go broke, they almost drove us broke with the stealing. But that is another soapbox. Sorry.

Back to the packets, use what you need and leave the rest, don't pack them home.

←

Well, I have grown up and have an income now. Like I said...college.

When you pay a lot of money for a basket of bisquits or muffins and coffee delivered to your room I still think the jams are fair game.

I don't know about snow birds, but I suspect they like individual items for the convience. those expensive trailers and motorhomes don't have a lot of space. That said, if they can afford those kind of toys then they can certainly afford to go to Sam's and buy the packets themselves and bring what they need with them.

I've always thought about the expense of sending those small jars up to rooms. Is the cost less than having someone wash small bowls of jam spooned from commercial containers? Or is it just the cachet? The 'luxury' aspect..we are pampering you, and you won't bitch when you see the bill kind of thing???

A lot of that stuff walks out with the employees as well. I used to know waitresses who justified it when they looked at their paychecks. Stealing is wrong, in any case. but when have you paid for something???

[racheld]

When we were in England a couple of years ago, I was already a devoted Nigella fan, so when we passed a room service tray just sitting there idly in the hall, dirty dishes and forlorn deserted little packets of stuff, I knelt down and took a couple of each packet, starting with the BROWN SAUCE her Goddessness puts on so many things.

The packets were like spills, long thin things like fat straws, not like our little flat wisps. There were hot mustard, brown sauce, ketchup and maybe Worchestershire; can't really remember. Carted them home in a baggie inside my carryon. Except for the novelty of the shape, etc., no big deal.

And Brown Sauce---it's just A-1 in a Gucci wrapper.

Don't think I would have bothered with the jam on the breakfast table every a.m., especially the usual flavours, but there was one wee jar of "Bramble Jelly"---the favorite of dear Jennifer Dickson-Wright, bless her heart---and one of Black Currant, again klept for the novelty value. The Bramble was exactly like the blackberry jelly I've made all my life, and the other, just jelly. The romance of it turned my head. I've read too much Austen, and watched too much Masterpiece Theatre.

But the little jars are still in my fridge door, refilled everytime Granddaughter visits. She always exclaims, "My little JAR!"

PS--My sister's college roommate went to France every other year on what she saved by carting home everything on every restaurant table. My skin still cringes when I remember her shouting after us as we headed for the register, "Don't Y'all want some of this BUDDER???"

Edited June 7, 2006 by racheld (log)

[zilla369]

For me, there's a big distinction between taking jars that are sent up with room service (perfectly fine) and jars that are set out on a buffet (maybe not so much.) The premium price of room service and the unlikelihood that the jars would make it back to the kitchen later is the justification in the first scenario.

[TPO]

For me, there's a big distinction between taking jars that are sent up with room service (perfectly fine) and jars that are set out on a buffet (maybe not so much.)  The premium price of room service and the unlikelihood that the jars would make it back to the kitchen later is the justification in the first scenario.

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Also, if I am splurging on room service I just might sample all four preserves anyway. But if they were on a buffet or restaurant table, then to me they are no different than the single-serving packets of jelly or sugar on tables and I wouldn't take them.

My local natural foods store sells tiny jars of locally made preserves. I think they contain more like two or three servings, but they are very cute.

[racheld]

Editing above post to correct my naming of DEAR Jennifer Patterson, bless her heart. She was a great light on the food scene, a TV phenom, a curmudgeonly-seeming, bumbly dearie with an enormous flair, great zest for life, and a wickedly naughty turn of wit. I do miss her, and do believe that the show could run in an eternal loop like Mayberry and Lucy, gaining countless new viewers and delighting the established ones.

Pardon my careless mistake---it's been too long since I've seen the show, and I wish it would come back. I'd swap all the unwraps, hams, grillings, bashes, and secret lives of, for just one daily episode of FL.

[Amida0616]

In my mind if you order Room Service any foodstuff that is brought with it is yours for the taking. Including mini jams, mini ketchups, ect

I would say that stuff on a table at a resturant jams, butter, ect is not "free for the taking" it is in fact "free for the using" a big difference.

[SheenaGreena]

my mom has those little jars of jam in her kitchen as decoration (when I lived at home we were not allowed to use them). DECORATION ONLY.

I was in manhattan 3 weeks ago and my boyfriend and I stayed at a hotel there. They had gourmet tea next to the coffee pot and I tried to take every tea bag home with me. My boyfriend said I should only take one of each kind. What's the big deal?

[Kent D]

Anything in the room not designated as "for a fee" and not a permanent part of the room (mugs, glasses, Gideon Bibles, etc.) is fair game, especially if it comes up with room service, like condiments. Obviously, I don't take the single-brew packets of room coffee, but the individually-wrapped plastic cups are handy for in-the-car use. I still can't believe when we're staying in a room that has a couple 1-liter bottles of water sitting there, with a tag that says "for your convenience, this water can be drank for only $3.00/bottle". It's not even chilled, and I can walk 30 feet down to a machine and buy a bottle of the same stuff chilled for $1.25. Or drink from the tap for FREE! I figure if they can mark up water to that price, I'm going to help myself to some pens and notepads...

And in a related note, I heard on the news the other day 3 guys walked into a Taco Bell with 3 trash bags fulls of sauce packets they had taken and stored in their car trunk, and then they felt guilty and brought them back.

[gfweb]

 

No more room service on a cart, with china and silverware.  Now its mostly in disposable to-go containers and with plastic utensils.

 

french fries are well-steamed and salads wilted. yuck

 

They bill it as "no touch" and cite the covid as the necessity.

 

The trend certainly started before the pandemic in many Marriotts, probably because it saves money, but now its all over.

 

Barf

 

 

 

 

 

[Darienne]

Not only are the high end hotels hit...the  low end motels are also. 

 

We stay with the dogs in Motel 6s (and Red Roofs) all over Ontario and the States and they always have a sort of cafeteria/common room where you can get coffee (we make our own) and breakfasty things like pastries and muffins and cereals (which we don't eat).  But Ed has been known to drink one of the coffees and I'll often grab a muffin or two for emergencies should they arise.  

 

Well, now they aren't there.  Nada.  Covid.  

[Kim Shook]

Particularly ridiculous in the high end places since they all have restaurants that are open for business and presumably are turning out decent food.  

[Smithy]

Not deliberately funny, but this is the best place I can think of for last night's story.

 

The scene: a Super 8 hotel in Story City, Iowa. I note at check-in that you have to ask for a coffee maker for the room, and ask for one. The clerk notes that there's coffee available 24/7 in the lobby. I ask for the coffee maker anyway, the way I won't have to get dressed for my first morning cuppa.

 

A half-hour or so later, I go back down the hall to ask about the coffee maker. She'd had to send her partner to the storeroom, wherever that is, to find one. She produced it.

 

Me: "What about coffee packets to go into it?" 

She: "You mean there aren't any in the room?"

 

 

Why she'd think that, when the coffee maker isn't already kept there, I don't understand. I never did get any packets.

[Maison Rustique]

@Smithy Maybe you need to start traveling with some coffee packets. That's nuts!!

[TdeV]

@Smithy, I have a tea stash for just this purpose. If you're interested, et me know where I should post my response.

[liuzhou]

Here in China, every day I carry sachets of salt in my wallet in case I come across hotels serving what they imagine to be western food. They never season it! I think that is largely because they are more used to reaching for the soy sauce for seasoning.

 

When travelling wider I also carry ground coffee (which I grind myself).

 

 

 

[Ddanno]

5 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Here in China, every day I carry sachets of salt in my wallet in case I come across hotels serving what they imagine to be western food. They never season it! I think that is largely because they are more used to reaching for the soy sauce for seasoning.

 

When travelling wider I also carry ground coffee (which I grind myself).

 

 

 

 

You're just a few steps away from one of these

 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1386588423/hot-sauce-belt-holster-mini-2-oz-travel?ls=s&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=tabasco+holster&ref=sr_gallery-1-4&organic_search_click=1&content_source=acd68fb8-9234-44b6-ba7a-66c80b5853ef%3A58b659375fdffede40d17fab655d07ccdac3ca37&logging_key=acd68fb8-9234-44b6-ba7a-66c80b5853ef%3A58b659375fdffede40d17fab655d07ccdac3ca37

[liuzhou]

7 minutes ago, Ddanno said:

 

You're just a few steps away from one of these

 

I think not. Where I live they might miss out the salt but the chilli? Never.

[Ddanno]

21 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

I think not. Where I live they might miss out the salt but the chilli? Never.

 

Ha, yes

[Maison Rustique]

This reminds me...during the pandemic, when some restaurants first opened and partitioned off tables, sanitized everything, etc., one of the things was they put no salt/pepper or menus on the tables (you had to look online). So, my sister bought me the tiniest s/p grinders ever to carry in my purse. I did and I kept them in a ziplock bag, but somehow, pepper ended up getting out and into my purse. To this day, I will pull something out of my bag and it smells like pepper. Cracks me up!

[Ddanno]

24 minutes ago, Maison Rustique said:

Cracks me up!

Very good 😄

[TdeV]

Upton Tea ships tea in resealable light/air/moisture-proof ziplocks, and a small quantity can be purchased for travelling purposes.

Also these tea bags (with stick) are perfect!