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Restaurant Responds After Diner Complains That He Has to Pay $50 to Bring in Outside Cake

2022-06-19 , 11:05 am

It’s a tale as old as time for restaurants to have a policy against outside food & drinks.

(And reasonably so, I might add.)

But a complaint has sparked a bit of back-and-forth online when one Internet user came forth with his story on how a birthday celebration soured due to the restaurant’s enforcement of this policy.

Informed Restaurant about Birthday Event

According to Stomp, the customer made a reservation for five people at Le Jardin, a European and French-inspired restaurant on 14 June (Monday).

The dinner was meant to be a birthday celebration and the group bought a cake from elsewhere for it.

Yet to the group’s surprise, the restaurant did not allow them to bring the cake in.

Instead, they will have to pay a S$50 fee to the restaurant for bringing the cake in as “no outside food was allowed”.

Similar Experience Written on Google Review

In a Google review, another user named Darren Wong reports a similar experience.

The review seems to be related to the incident reported by Stomp.

“The staff after further discussions later suggested that we pay a cover fee of $50 if we (want to) continue to dine there,” said Wong.

Wong continued that the staff was insistent about the cover fee for the cake.

He believed that the episode could have been “better handled” if the restaurant insisted on the purchase of one of the restaurant’s cakes as reimbursement instead.

“This venue obviously does not care nor bother about their customers,” said Wong at the end of his review.

Restaurant Response on Google Review

In reply to Wong’s experience, the restaurant said that they wanted to clarify a few points made in Wong’s review.

The restaurant explained the rationale behind their fixed policy banning outside food and drinks.

“Such policy imposed is to allow the customers to enjoy our own daily baked cakes from the Le Jardin Bakery.”

“Hope you understand that this policy is not ‘absurd and totally unheard of’,” said the restaurant.

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The restaurant also clarified that their one-time cover fee proposed for bringing outside food in is S$20 and not S$50.

What was more odd was that under Wong’s table reservation, a cake had already been reserved with the restaurant.

And lastly, the restaurant clarified that they did suggest to the group to purchase the cake they reserved in exchange for the cake they brought on their own with no additional cover fees.

Still, this was apparently rejected by Wong and his group.

Netizens Response

Many netizens stood by the restaurant’s stance regarding outside food & drinks.

In a comment with 126 likes, the comment defended the restaurant and said that it was reasonable for the restaurant to charge the cover fee for outside food.

“(The policy being) not unheard of … perhaps unheard of by himself,” said the comment.

The other was more straightforward and believed that the policy should be followed always.

“This group of diners (is) on the wrong side. The restaurant has the right to implement their set of rules.”