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this is completely standard in the restaurant industry. many establishments will not even allow outside food / beverage brought in for a variety of financial and liability issues....
however, when they can allow for a cake to be brought in - it does not serve itself. a cake cutting fee covers not only the lost revenue of providing the desert to start with, but also the additional labor for service and clean up, as well as the dishes and flatware required.
$3.50 is very reasonable - many restaurants are higher, and generally the only way around it -- is to not bring a cake in.
it really is not ridiculous when you consider everything involved in serving and cleaning up after 20 people.
This might be one of the reasons cupcakes and mini cakes started gaining popularity. :)
Ours is a flat $50 fee (which is VERY reasonable). We were also given the option to have someone cut and serve the cake (one of our friends/relatives) but for $50, it's worth it not to worry about it. Plus really, who wants to get stuck serving cake at a wedding? Not me!
my venue was just a regular banquet hall rather than a restaurant, the team of people who were standing by the buffet table to help serve were the ones who cut the cake and served it, they were my friends so there was no charge
@kscaggs: I agree with PPs that it is a reasonable fee ( I have seen much worse), however if you want to cut corners, a good friend or trusted relative would gladly do it for you. I have been a cake cutter and it wasn't bad at all. Especially for a 20 person cake, that's a breeze. If it's something you'd rather not ask someone else to do, I guess belly up and pay the fee :(
a restaurant that charges a cake cutting fee, will not simply waive it if someone in your party does the physical cutting.... that really isnt the point of the charge. it is mostly to cover the labor involved in the dishes / flatware / service, and the loss of revenue involved in not purchasing the desert through them.
If I brought a cake, my venue's fee was also $3.50 a person. Cupcakes? $2.50 a person. yippee.
Our was 2.50 a slice. I asked if they could wave it because it meant we would not be able to get our dream cake. Our venue said no big deal and waved it. It can't hurt to ask. You just never know.
@kscaggs: After my research that is pretty high, but then I'm not in Florida. The range around here tends to be between $1.25-2.50. And yes many places charge for cupcakes as well, especially if they have an in-house baker.
the golf club where i serve we charge $1.00/pp for cake cutting. Our caterer doesn't charge anything for cake cutting thank god.
I know when I work showers or weddings at the golf club, I always tell the people in charge. Because cutting the cake takes out a lot of time for ther servers...they could be cleaning up instead. Half of the time people get pissed and tell us no. We love it because that's less work for us!
its an outside cake but the restaurant still has to provide plates and cultery and staff to serve and wash everything afterwards - not so ridiculous if you factor in the restaurant cost
Its standard, they have to cover some costs to you know. its only fair.
I'm not sure if that's expensive (all services in the USA sound expensive to me haha) but it's standard practice here too. When I worked in a restaurant we had a $2pp cake cutting fee which is cheap for my area. We had a group of 40 in for a wedding reception one night with a cake. Wedding parties want their food served quickly and all at the same time. We managed to cut the cake, plate it nicely and serve it for 40 people in 20 minutes. It involved 4 staff, one to cut, one to plate, and two to serve.So you're paying for 20 minutes of work from those four staff. Then you have the dish washers who need to wash 40 extra plates and 40 extra forks. Lets say at best that takes 15 minutes.
Now, you only have 20 people so we'll say it takes 3 staff to cut, plate, serve @ 10 minutes, and 2 people washing up @10 minutes. You're paying for 5 staff to work 10 minutes each, that's almost an hour's worth of pay all up (which in the USA I know is pretty low in hospitality from the sounds of it, but still).
So you're paying $70 for cake cutting. Put $20 aside for wages, the other $50 makes the desserts for each guest a little over $2 (plus whatever you paid for the cake, but that's not the restaurant's problem).
When you write it out like that, it really sounds very reasonable IMO.
Originally, we were told a flat-rate cutting fee that was reasonable (I forget what exactly). When they updated the wedding info, it was ridiculous like $5/person or something. When we questioned them it included a head chef, who did it out front on a mirror. The venue had no issue with us cutting the cake (our parents did it) and they supplied the plates. We would have brought paper plates if necessary!
There was also a fee for borrowing a knife, we got a dessert set that matched some of our other wedding stuff for a decent price at BB&B.
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I am having a small beach wedding in Key West, April of 2012. We are hosting a dinner at a local restaurant, Southernmost Cafe, immediately following the ceremony. We only have a group of 20 people and the wedding cake is being delivered to the restaurant. Even though we are simply coming for dinner, the restaurant wants to charge us $3.50pp to cut the cake. This seems insane to me! Has anyone else encountered something like this and is there a way to avoid such a ridiculous fee?