Cake or break time for restaurant spongers!

Monday 20 April 2015

Cake makers are concerned that Jersey restaurants are taking a slice of their profits by charging a “cakeage fee” of up to £2.50 per person.

Jersey Potteries experimented with a £2.50 “cakeage” charge per person - an idea that they seem to picked up from London restaurants - but have since decided to stop allowing customers to bring cakes into their restaurants althogether, unless they are for a wedding or civil partnership, and they know the supplier and its Environmental Health Food Safety rating in advance.

But that decision has got one local cake maker Ann of Bake Me A Cake riled up.

She says that it might be fair for a restaurant to charge a flat fee of around £10 to serve and plate a cake for a meal, and then to do the dishes afterwards, but that a “cakeage fee” of £2.50 is way too high.

Ann pointed out that for a party of 20 people, the fee would come to £50 - all for simply cutting, serving, and washing some dishes.

“I can understand that they do have to charge something,” she said.

“But it should really be a flat fee arrangement - £50 for a party of 20 is ridiculous.”

She added that the charge wasn’t about food safety - she said she had spent years qualifying by studying pastry courses, and that because of the kinds of ingredients used, people rarely got sick from eating cake.

The cakeage story has hit the national headlines in recent weeks - the Women’s Institute were outraged when the Royal Albert Hall told them it would charge £2,500 in cakeage fees, after two members slaved away for hours to make 5,000 slices of fruitcake for their annual conference.

In the end, the WI got around the charge after rearranging the event so the cake - all 5,000 slices of it - would be served and eaten outside the building.