Seasonal customers cause buffet restaurants to go under!

[greensinestro]

Many buffet restaurants in South Florida are now defunct due to thieving customers. We had one down here a long time ago called The Ranch House. It was very popular among the local natives in the Broward and Dade county areas. Yet, whenever the fall season came, the snowbirds from upper states New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts came down to ruin it for everyone.

Much of the time, it was the women who caused the most chaos. They would bring in these purses you would swear contained their overnight clothing, but would use them to steal the linen napkins, the silverware, the ashtrays, and drinking glasses. They would dump the entire contents of sugar packets in there as well, and later on, pulled out a few doggie bags so they could take home some leftovers for the next few nights.

Due to this, The Ranch House lost money for this thievery, going under in no time at all. They knew who the culprits were, but at the time they were afraid to do anything for fear of a bad rap. Despite that, they went defunct anyway.

Hence, this is why now in many restaurants down here, the menus say things like "Sorry, no sharing allowed" or "No doggie bags allowed". Too bad oversized purses can't be left outside.

[Sofar]

Good lord, my customers may be sweet to me, but they're kleptomaniacs. People just take stuff. Baskets, handfuls of plastic forks, bottles of cat-soup, a dozen paper cups with "Coca-cola" written all over them, people purposefully neglect to buy a drink with their meal and then just grab one anyway, seeing as we keep the cups right by the fountain, and I can't remember who bought a drink and who didn't. People sometimes just come in off the street and grab a drink, then waltz back out. And don't talk to me about tip jar thefts, every other day I catch someone with their hand in that thing. Fortunately we use an old milk bottle for tips, and once you slide your hand in there you'll likely have difficulty getting it back out. It's hilarious when the cook catches them at that, they then get cursed at in Spanish by a small wirey man in a white silk bow-tie waving a carving knife, (we really don't need the carving knife up front but we keep it here anyway.)

[TruthHurts]

We have a continental breakfast at our hotel. There are always these people who load up on everything. They take entire stacks of cups/napkins/utensils, handfuls of hot chocolate/tea packets and so on and so forth.

They lug all this stuff into their room and don't even use them more times than not it's left behind in their rooms.

[karma_gypsy]

That's horrible . . . I take it SC's must think these things must fall out of mid-air? I could never even fathom taking silverware or any kind of flatware/dinnerware (why would I? 50 million people have used that same fork anyway).

[Ringtail Z28]

Geez, this reminds me of the story Tonydonuts posted about the redneck family that complained about not being allowed to bring an ice chest into a buffet. It's no wonder why so many of these places go out of business.

[JuniorMintz]

My grandmother (Lord rest her soul) and great aunt and a few of their friends were *all* booted and banned from Hometown Buffet once-

...for emptying entire trays of cookies and other baked goods into their purses from the desert bar. They had even lined the insides of the purses with plastic bags so nothing would be ruined!

Honestly, I think that's the only time my grandmother tried something like that. My great aunt and her tacky ass friends though... well, there's a reason we have no association with them anymore. Freaks.

[jb17kx]

What is cat-soup?

I did see recently a woman get busted collecting teabags from a breakfast bar on my way to a friend's place...

[Barefootgirl]

What is cat-soup?

Soup made from cats, silly...!

I suspect it is a regional variation of ketchup, catsup, whatever you want to call it. Tomato condiment famously manufactured by Heinz.

[friendofjimmyk]

Oh dear, this reminds me of the mother of one of my ex b/f's. I have spoken of this woman here before - she is one of the mother of all SCs and entitlement whores...

...she and her husband were rich. FILTHY RICH! She threw money around and she never failed to tell you what fantastic financial wizards they were. But she was so freakin' cheap at times it amazed me.

We'd go to an all you can eat thing, there was this one restaurant in particular that had all you can eat shrimp - she'd line her purse with foil and order away and dump most of it in her purse. She did this at other restaurants like cheapo chicken wing night or all you can eat catfish nights I LOATHED going out to eat with her.

[digilight]

What is cat-soup?.

He wants to know also



hmmm yummy Cat-Soup

[dragonflygrrl]

Ranch House is out of business?! No way, I used to love going to the "Raunch House" the morning (or more precisely early afternoon) after a long night out. That makes me sad.

[amphrite]

The parents who bring their children to my pool, (mostly the preschooler in the Wading pool) will steal the toys that we have, right out of the box maked 'FOR LESSONS ONLY'. I wish we had an equipment room with a lock on it.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We'd go to an all you can eat thing, there was this one restaurant in particular that had all you can eat shrimp - she'd line her purse with foil and order away and dump most of it in her purse. She did this at other restaurants like cheapo chicken wing night or all you can eat catfish nights I LOATHED going out to eat with her.

Why does it seem the people who are most well-to-do are the ones who do this?

[Hempress]

Why does it seem the people who are most well-to-do are the ones who do this?

How do you think they get that way? Not by paying for stuff, heavens no!

[Slave to the Phone]

I used to listen to a radio talk-show host in Phoenix who would complain about this. His biggest complaint was that one had to ask the waitperson for sweetener because the owners couldn't leave it on the tables lest it be stolen.

He blamed snowbirds and Sun City residents equally.

I laughed so hard that I almost rear-ended someone the morning I heard some old fart call in and threaten to stuff his walker up the radio guys