Large Louisiana men claim restaurant banned them for eating too much

[Catty1]

I figure, if bars can cut off people who drink too much.... ;)

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http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/080103/K010302AU.html

Large Louisiana men claim restaurant banned them for eating too much
Published: Thursday, January 3, 2008 | 9:22 AM ET
Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HOUMA, La. - Gluttony has its limits.

At least that appears to be the case at a Louisiana restaurant that had enough of two large men pigging out at its expense.

Ricky Labit, a 6-foot-3, 265-pound disabled offshore worker, says the Manchuria Restaurant in Houma first charged him double for his trips to the buffet.

Then it banned him and a relative because of how much they consumed during their visits.

Labit described himself as a regular at the restaurant, eating there as often as three times a week.

But on his most recent visit, he said a waitress gave him and his wife's cousin, Michael Borrelli, a bill for $46.40, roughly double the buffet price for two adults.

"She says: 'Y'all fat, and y'all eat too much,"' Labit said.

Labit and Borrelli said they felt discriminated against because of their size.

"I was stunned that somebody would say something like that," Borrelli said. "I ain't that fat, I only weigh 277."

Accountant Thomas Campo, who spoke for the restaurant because the owner's English is limited, said the men were charged an extra $10 each Dec. 21 because they made a habit of dining exclusively on the more expensive seafood dishes, including crab legs and frog legs.

"We have a lot of big people there," Campo said. "We don't discriminate."

The argument over the bill grew heated, and police were called. The police report states that the disagreement was settled when the restaurant said the bill was a mistake and, to appease Labit, the meal was complimentary.

Labit said he insisted on paying but was told not to come back.

He also complained that when seafood on the buffet line runs out, the restaurant only grudgingly cooks more.

Campo said the proprietress tries to reduce wasting quality food.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

[Jessika]

Well......... ok, I can kind of see the restaurant's reasoning. But if they aren't wasting the food, if they're honestly eating it all, then what's the harm? If the restaurant wants to prohibit people from eating "too much", then maybe they should put a limit on how many pounds of food or plates from the bar they get and charge on that versus a one-time fee? If this makes sense.

Kind of like Golden Corral has take-out you can get and it goes by the pound.

[Catty1]

Jessika - I'd agree, except for this one part:
Accountant Thomas Campo, who spoke for the restaurant because the owner's English is limited, said the men were charged an extra $10 each Dec. 21 because they made a habit of dining exclusively on the more expensive seafood dishes, including crab legs and frog legs.

"We have a lot of big people there," Campo said. "We don't discriminate."

[Medusa]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. When my son was in college, he and his friend frequently visited a buffet. They were on a college budget and they were strapping young, strong men who could put it away. One day the manager asked them to leave, not because they were rowdy or impolite or even gluttonous, just because, in the manager's words, "you boys cost me too much money". I found it funny at the time but later it dawned on me that it's an "all you can eat" buffet restaurant so what was the problem? My son has hardly ever eaten fast food, he eats really healthy, always has, even in high school and college, and he felt that the buffet was the healthiest way to go on his budget. I think if these men in this article actually prevented other customers from getting to the food, then the manager would have a legitimate gripe.

[moosmom]

If you don't want customers eating "all they can eat" then don't make it an 'ALL YOU CAN EAT' restaurant. It's that's simple.

[joycenalex]

catty, bars cut people off because they can be sued for the accidents after drinking. how could one restaurant be sued for the results of food addiction? it is LEGAL to discriminate against people because they are fat in the US. fatness & body size are not a protected category by the federal government,{ side note- protected categories are, ancestry, national origin, color, race, religion, sex (title 7) age (ADEA) and disability(ADA).} state protected categories vary widely, but none that i could find for Louisiana were on weight or body size. (i didn't spend much time on that search, so i might be proved wrong).
it's gonna be interesting to see how this one plays out: the owners are selling an all you can eat buffet; this man didn't need to make it a personal challenge event. the owners, having the knowledge that the man ate there so regularly, might have pulled the seafood on his "days/times" so that their financial loss from him didn't occur. the owners are gonna have some difficulty on this, they got more , legally/socially to lose then the man does.(yes i went for the pun)

[Medusa]

If you don't want customers eating "all they can eat" then don't make it an 'ALL YOU CAN EAT' restaurant. It's that's simple.
Exactly. In the case of my son and his friend, they were both as thin as reeds and still are. I'm not sure why they advertise "all you can eat" if indeed they don't mean it.

[Catty1]

*sigh* Okay, I guess a quote and bold type don't cut it. These guys ate ONLY the EXPENSIVE STUFF from the buffet. Crab and frog legs. That's IT. Not leaving any for the rest of the customers - as they mentioned, the kitchen would 'grudgingly' cook up more of those items when they ran out.

The bar cutting off drunk people comparison was tongue-in-cheek. Though drunkenness is a symptom, as fat is, one is more dangerous to others. I know that.

And pulling the expensive items? Not sure how they would know when the guys' "day" is - and how fair is it to take that away from the rest of the customers?

As Campo said, there are a lot of big people that go there - I think these guys were taking advantage of the situation.

Reminds me of a situation in Calgary I heard of from a friend - he and a larger fellow had gone to a Chinese buffet. When this one guy went up for about the 5th time, the owner said to him, "This is all-you-can-eat ---- not "you-can-eat-all"!!" ;)

[Medusa]

*sigh* These guys ate ONLY the EXPENSIVE STUFF
Still shouldn't matter. I get it that the guys are rather gluttonous and not leaving any for other customers but it's still all you can eat. Otherwise, they should post a sign that says something to the effect of "two helpings only" or whatever.

[Catty1]

Yes, if they posted those signs on the expensive items, that would make sense. Cause the guys don't eat anything else on the buffet.

[Edwina's Secretary]

I remember being in a Pizza Hut in Milwaukee some years ago. I was with some co-workers, one of whom was a VERY large man. Also in the restaurant was a woman with her son. The first question was why the son was not in school. The mother was large.....very, very large. Very, very, very large. Her son...probably around 10 was working hard to catch up to mom.

They both made trip after trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet. After trip, after trip. The rather large man in my group said he could eat no more...he was so offended by the abuse of the service provided by the restaurant.

I suppose that Pizza Hut no longer has a buffet.

Restaurants are businesses. If they cannot make money, they cannot stay in business.

Of course, they do not say "All you can eat in one sitting" so I suppose they should allow me to take "all I can eat in a week" and pack it up and I'll take it with me.

And then the restuarant will close...or otherwise change how they do business and people will complain about the owners.

[Medusa]

Just goes to show ya that we have to be careful about how we word things. Years ago, when my son was just a little boy and I was working full time, I told my babysitter who was financially struggling to "help yourself to whatever food you like". Ok, I meant to eat while she was there. I came home from work that night and was wiped out and I mean totally. She took everything in my fridge, freezer, pantry, etc., even a 5 lb. bag of sugar that would normally take me a year or more to go through. Needless to say, I got another babysitter and let it go because, as I said, she was financially struggling and apparently was hungry. LOL

[cyber-sibes]

Reminds me of a situation in Calgary I heard of from a friend - he and a larger fellow had gone to a Chinese buffet. When this one guy went up for about the 5th time, the owner said to him, "This is all-you-can-eat ---- not "you-can-eat-all"!!" ;) :D LOL! Maybe they should put this in small letters at the bottom of the sign!

[Laura's Babies]

As a cook on a boat, I have come to understand a lot of people have a eating problem... They do think that they are entitled to eat ALL they want no matter how rude it is, who it hurts or who they cause to not get any. They are only out to fill up and somehow, they never do get full! On the boat, when they walk on there, it is no longer THEIR problem, it is MINE! I am suppose to know before they get there that they are coming, I am suppose to know If I always cooked a 5# roasts before, I need to cook 10# of roast now even though the budget and freezer space won't cover it. I am suppose to know where I cook a pound of bacon for breakfast, I am now suppose to cook 2# so they can eat a whole pound by themselves and the other pound is for the rest of the crew. I am suppose to know in advance, what food they are going to target and clean us out of overnight, their response..."Next time order MORE!".... but they can never tell you how much is enough or that the next night, they will want to clean us out of something else.

Right now I have a guy that eats 12 to 14 of my homemade cookies at a time, 2 to 3 times a day. Nobody else gets any but he don't care. Everybody complains that they never get any but 1 or 2 and then they are all gone. Since I only bake 36 at a time, they don't even last a day and I simply don't have time to cook all you can eat for one person and enough for the entire rest of the crew to get some. This guy eats HALF of however many mashed potatoes I make, leaving the other half for the rest of the crew (8 people) to share. He thinks he is entitled to it and I just need to make more the next time. They think they are entitled to over rule the Captains orders to stay in the budget and the budget the company sets for us to follow. I had one guy tell me to hell with the budget, he wanted steaks twice a week and half of the pork chops I cook when I cooked them..... :rolleyes: Sorry, but the Captian gives me orders and if I don't follow them, he CAN fire me. The COMPANY tells me I have to stay in budget and if I don't, THEY will fire me so who do you think I am going to listen to? YOUR eating problem is YOUR problem, NOT MINE!

[Catlady711]

If they didn't want an all you can eat buffet they they shouldn't have one. They make money from the normal people who waste food, at least this guy is actually eating it. If they want to limit trips rather than call it an all you can eat that would probably solve the problem I'd think.

[Catty1]

Laura - I don't know what the company would do with a crew member who drank too much alcohol, but an eating problem can be a really serious thing.

Can companies order an employee to get help for an eating disorder? I wonder...

I hope a way can be found to let the rest of the crew get their fair share...do they harrass the guys who eat too much?

What a pain for you...like alkies, they never get enough. :(

[Laura's Babies]

Catty, the company is into all this wellness stuff now and they have already saved lives with it in finding people ready to heave heart attacks, very diabetic and people with high blood pressure so high they were ready to blow a gasket.

The ones who eat like that are not popular out there, the guy who eats all the cookies get harrassed all the time about how much he eats but he don't care what they say, he is still going to eat! It does create a lot of resentment when they show up to eat and there is hardly anything left and he is sitting there with it all on his plate. I have already learned that no matter how much you cook, it is never enough with one of those types people and they usually only want meat and potatoes and nothing else.

It is my belief from a lifetime of observation, that eating habits are formed as a baby. I think maybe some are just born hungry and never feel satisfied. Once grown, they simply just can not controll it and it is like any other addiction, they will do ANYTHING and do not care about anyone else as long as they get what they want. I think it is a physical something in their brain that just don't work right, the hunger pangs never shut off and the fullness sensation is never there. It is not something they can control.

However, they should have sense enough to know they can not go to one of those all you can eat places and think they can clean out the food bar and it be acceptable. If they have to eat like that, go to several of those all you can eat places and eat several plates full, pay for it and go to another and do it that way. I had one nice young deckhand one time that was a large eater but he was smart! He would eat his plate full and just sit there and talk to whoever was eating through the whole meal time. He would sit there until everyone ate and left.... THEN, he would go get what was left and eat all he wanted. I was so impressed with that young man and his manners.

They can not control it but why not use common sense?

[joycenalex]

catty, an addict is an addict. different substances. the big book applies across all the addictions, in my opinion. that guys statement in the first post...." i aint that fat, i only weigh 277#"... gets a nod of recognition from me....i aint that drunk, i only had a six pack..... alcoholics can kill people with their cars, and that made bars, and the rise of the MADD movement stop serving inebriated, but food addicts can kill themselves with teeth. food is the only addiction that i can think of that you gotta deal with 3 times a day for the rest of your life.
laura, have you or the captian or HR for the company tried telling the problem guy to settle back abit and let the others eat too? i bet you have, but maybe written statements as part of company program about amounts of food to be bought at ship out, blah, blah ?

[sparks19]

While this isn't mentioned in the article....

there is a possibility the restaurant is also covering it's own behind... heck people are trying to sue fast food restaurants for making them overweight.... why not an all you can eat restaurant? if he cut them off I suppose he isn't liable ;) Just a thought.

[Catty1]

joyce, I agree. I spent 12 years in a 12 step program for overeaters. I KNOW the mindset.....just blind eating. Blank mind.

With drinking, companies usually have to use the "get help or be fired" approach, and can even recommend places. I think this eating addiction has to be treated the same way. Both booze and food addictions (and others) cost companies money, as well as affecting crew morale.

I hope management will see this and bring the hammer down.

[Laura's Babies]

laura, have you or the captian or HR for the company tried telling the problem guy to settle back abit and let the others eat too? i bet you have, but maybe written statements as part of company program about amounts of food to be bought at ship out, blah, blah ?

The only thing the company addresses it the amount of the budget allowed per person. $15 a day, per man. What the men fail to realize it what the cost of food IS! The mark up out there is staggering but they have to go get the food, box it up, keep it cold/frozen and bring it out there to us so the mark up is very understandable.One, 2 week supply is a easy $2000 and you have to cook enough to feed EVERYBODY, EVERY meal, rather they eat or not because they might eat. One guy may only eat one meal a day so he thinks he is entitled to eat as much as he wants that one meal. The attitude of some of them is "the more you eat, the more you make". They also fail to realize, the boat stores do not package up their meats in a varity of sizes. You have the choice of pork chops, 8 to a pack or 12 to a pack. Roasts are all close around 5# and you can't order a 8# roast for the guy who wants to eat 3 pounds of it by himself. I have to keep reminding them we ONLY have so much freezer space and that is all... so we have a limitted budget and limitted freezer space. I can not order $4000 worth of groceries even if the company allowed it! It is like they don't know how to see and think or figure things out for themselves. :rolleyes: