Your mother may have told you to clean your plate. Well, now one local restaurant is taking that a step further.
They’re charging customers for food they don’t finish.
At Hayashi Ya Japanese restaurant on the Upper West Side it’s all you can eat for $26.95, unless your eyes are bigger than your stomach and then — like the sign says — it will cost you extra.
When asked if he had ever been hit with a 3 percent charge for packing some stuff up and taking it home, Gene Nadelson of Sheepshead Bay laughed.
“No, we are trying to finish everything here,” Nadelson said.
Patrons said they don’t mind the surcharge because it helps with their waistline. The manager said he implemented the extra cost two years ago to help with the restaurant’s bottom line.
The manager told CBS 2 HD the main motivation for the charge is to eliminate waste.
And cost.
“Tens of billions of dollars are wasted each year on food that is purchased and not eaten,” said Joel Berg of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.
One more step toward obesity…
Key rule to stay slim: “Listen to your hunger”. If you’re not hungry anymore, just stop eating. Even if you’ve not finished your plate.
Is the photo of the girl eating the plate of food for real ?
She looks like she has cleaned out one hotel restaurant eatery too many
This isn’t a new system. There have been “all you can eat” restaurants doing this for years. It’s to make people look a little closer at what they’re ordering. Most of them that I’ve eaten at have actually been quite lenient if you leave a little something on the table and can’t quite finish; it’s more for the people who order 10 times what they can actually eat and cost the restaurant a lot of money (hundreds of dollars worth of food and they are only paying 25$ for it, then not eating it anyway). Most of the places I’ve been in that do this are ones where the plates of food are shared, its not as though they’re looking at your steak and mashed potatoes to see if you ate every last bite.
Very common practice in Toronto as well… And, when you order Sushi, you have to eat the rice as well. You cannot peel off the fish leave the rice.
It makes sense to me, unfortunately. You can be a glutton, but you have to be a total glutton.
Have eaten there many times. Nice cozy (and very efficient, as the stereotype would imply) place. They help “all-you-can-eat” customers by bringing orders in small quantities, on and on until you are stuffed… After all, it is mainly Sushi. You can also order fixed price/fixed portion items.
I can see if you are taking food home from a buffet, but if you order something and don’t finish it you should not be charged.
Once you buy something it’s yours to do with what you wish. What if I bought a newspaper and read only the business section.
What if you order something and it’s too much or the rice isn’t how you like it or whatever. Screw these guys. I would raise a stink and not go back if they pulled that here.
#4 – Named
>>And, when you order Sushi, you have to eat
>>the rice as well. You cannot peel off the
>>fish leave the rice.
That’s the scam with “all-you-can-eat” sushi; by forcing you to eat the rice, you end up with $0.75 worth of rice and $5 worth of fish for $26.95.
Then they add insult to injury by peppering the plate with faux “sushi” (California rolls, celery and carrot sushi, and shit like that.
An on-line review for this place says “HAyashi Ya is for one purpose, and one purpose only. Get drunk. Their food isn’t great. I know this because every time I eat here my stomach has a hard time the next morning, and this includes nights when I don’t indulge in drinking. 23 bucks will get you unlimited food (anything on the menu aside from sashimi) and unlimited drinks (sake). Not to mention the place is byob and there is a liquor store and deli conveniently located within close proximity. Don’t plan on coming here with your family for a nice dinner. Plan on coming here with your college friends on a friday or saturday night with the purpose of get wasted and eating absurd amounts of moderate quality “sushi”.”
That said, most of the restaunts I go to (NOT all-you-can-eat ones) give portions that are WAAAAY too large. Either that, or the chi-chi metrosexual places give you an “entrée” that looks like it should be an appetizer.
7,
“That’s the scam with “all-you-can-eat” sushi; by forcing you to eat the rice, you end up with $0.75 worth of rice and $5 worth of fish for $26.95.”
I agree with your analysis, but not your claim that it’s a “scam”. You’re not forced to go there and you don’t have to order from the buffet / AYCE.
I’ll tell you something I noticed about restaurants…
In Toronto, most of the restaurants give you a fair portion for a fair price, or a large portion for a large price. We have a mini-trend going on here too where you have restaurants / wine bars that do half-portions of really great, quality, local food. And it’s nice because the prices are also similarly reduced. Which makes great sense and allows you to double your order and not spend more than a typical 3 course meal at a nice restaurant. I like it. The restaurant scene in Toronto is pretty good, so long as you can identify strictly trendy places with trendy places that make good food. When I was in France in September, I also noticed that the portions were similar to what I would get in Toronto. It was great! Really amazing food in Paris. Their crap restaurants are worth 3 / 5 stars in Toronto. Anyhoo, the prices there were also very reasonable. A rib steak with fries for 14 Euros. Not bad at all.
Now, I say this because whenever I eat in the US, I’m absolutely APPALLED at how much food is on the table. Meat, three kinds of starches, three kinds of veg, bread, butter, refill soda… how the hell can you eat all that! So, I understand the Americans that say they don’t get enough food when they’re in Europe, because American restaurants serve unGodly portions… Even though I love the experience of eating, I dread restaurants in the US.
#8 – Named
OK, maybe “scam” was too harsh a term. “misleading to the unwary”, perhaps.
Still, if I wanted to eat two pounds of rice, I could do it at home for about fifty cents. And when you DO get the raw fish (instead of celery and carrots and shredded lettuce), it’s not the high-caliber stuff I want.
Sushi (done properly) is not a cheap meal. It’s like buying cheap caviar, or cheap champagne. Not recommended. If somebody wants a cheap meal, Kraft macaroni and cheese is good.
As to the price/ size proportionality in Toronto, well, that’s Canada for ya. You also have universal health insurance.
9,
“As to the price/ size proportionality in Toronto, well, that’s Canada for ya. You also have universal health insurance.”
Yeah…
Oh Canada
Our home and Native land
*sniff*
And you’re right about sushi. It is NOT a cheap meal. Unless you like crap, farmed fish. I have one sushi restaurant in T.O. that I patronize almost exclusively.. Ta Ke Sushi.
All fish is cut the same way. Who sources the fish and when they get it is the secret a sushi restaurant would kill to get and keep.
It won’t show me the article unless I post… please disregard this
# 8 Named said, “So, I understand the Americans that say they don’t get enough food when they’re in Europe,”
You’re kidding, right? In Europe I get way more food than in the US. Course after course is served. Granted, this is at higher end restaurants in EU & US.
12,
Well, yes, if you go for the prix fix you can get 7 courses of the most amazing food for about 50 Euros… But, when you order just a plat, you get just a plat. A good sized plat as I see…
In the US, I get my plate, but three sides, plus finger foods, plus bread / sticks / cheesies…
#12 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>In Europe I get way more food than in the US.
That’s because you’re a glutton, Paddy-RAMBO.
You can ALWAYS get a lot of food for a lot of money. You keep that up, and you won’t fit into the Radio Shack uniform any longer.
And admit it, O’Pinocchio…you’ve never been to Europe. Even if you stowed away in the cargo hold of a merchant ship, you couldn’t afford that.
That photo is disturbing. I have no patience or concern for people who don’t want to take care of themselves. There are few that can’t and I can sympathize with them but most are just lazy.
Just a curiosity: I was raised by good Dutch offspring who drilled the “clean your plate” mantra into me. Now, I live in Thailand where it is considered impolite to clean your plate. It’s an insult to your host for not serving you enough food. I am so conflicted…
First the hot dog movie, now the picture of this chick. I gotta quit reading this blog at lunch time!
I haven’t voluntarily gone to a buffet in about ten years. (I don’t always get to vote where I eat.)
Ordering off the menu gets you a better prepared dish, with enough food, and a cheaper price.
#18 – Holy crap: Something we’re in 100% agreement on.
As for the restaurant, I’d pay a glutton tax if I also got to choose how much I pay for the food I eat after I determine its quality.
Another example of environmentalists and businesses being on the same side, like when they charge for plastic bags.
#20 – Lyin’ Mike
>>Another example of environmentalists and
>>businesses being on the same side, like when
>>they charge for plastic bags.
Oooohh noooo!!!! People paying for something they get! Goods for money!! What’s this world coming to?? The sky is falling!
Oh wait. Isn’t that your favorite socio-politcal system, capitalism? Are you going to throw it out with the bathwater just because some “libs” (e.g., environmentalists) adopt it too?
#7 Agreed. Putting carrot, celery or lettuce in Sushi should be a criminal office.
They should just own up to what this really is. A tax on thin people. They super size the proportions of the main course, with some cheap ingredient (like rice). And if one doesn’t eat every stinking grain of it…. What? Are they going to charge for THAT?! How about leftover gravy? It’s just a legalize form of customer abuse. In the guise of punishing the “wasteful”. You pay for the meal once. What difference is it to the seller that you didn’t eat it all? Maybe the Dairy industry should fine people who take Milk baths. Or General Mills fine bars who feature Jello wrestling, if the girls don’t eat it all up. You know there are going to be some rich bastards leaving behind half their caviar, and not being charged extra for it. Or they’d never come back to which ever swank restaurant that did. But these nameless slop troughs of the common man, are going to get away with yet another charge, that they very likely are reporting on their taxes.
Ya know I just saw a travelog on PBS, of some euro town that served caviar on the street like it was cheap fast food. And tourists were shoveling it down on some pita bread. Imagine seeing red caviar, next to the steaming hotdog of some NYC street vendor? Never happen! So Europe has its own unique excesses. Do they charge the tourists who barf up some fish eggs? They must be lousy with that stuff over there. Oh, and let’s not forget that Italian town that has its annual tomato fest, where the streets are covered with the discarded veggies. Yeah, only America wastes food. BS!