Woman left baffled by extortionate 'cakeage fee' at London pub
Topics: News, UK Food, Social Media
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: AzmanL/Getty Images
Topics: News, UK Food, Social Media
A woman was left gobsmacked by a massive 'cakeage' fee for her girlfriend's birthday party at a pub.
TikToker Helena Moody, 30, wanted to plan a special day for her girlfriend, who had booked a room at an unnamed pub for the 20 guests at the party.
And it wouldn't be a proper birthday party without a birthday cake, so Helena explained that she had planned to bring a shop-bought cake in for them to cut up.
But when she spoke to the London pub they informed her that this would incur a 'cakeage fee'.
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This is standard practice for an establishment to cover losses which might otherwise be spent on people ordering dessert from their kitchen, as well as the labour costs of washing up and clearing away.
But while Helena was fine with covering that, when she found out the high price of cutting her 'Sainsbury's basic cake' she was stunned.
Some establishments charge a flat rate for a cake, and comedian Helena assumed that this would be the case there.
"I thought, 'alright, what is the cakeage fee?' expecting it to be about £20 or £30 quid for the table - which is already a little bit expensive," she said in a post on social media.
Except this particular pub had taken a different approach.
She said: "The pub came back to me and no word of a f****** lie they said the cakeage fee would be £7 per person.
"I gave them the benefit of the doubt and I'm sure they don't realise there's 20 of us coming and that would be an insane as."
In disbelief, she said: "I went back to the pub and said, 'Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, just to clarify, there are 20 people. This will then be £140 to bring in a Sainsbury's basic cake'.
The comic was certainly not laughing when the pub replied and said that yes, the cakeage fee would be £140.
She also pointed out that the pub did not even serve cake.
Helena was determined that her girlfriend would have a cake on her birthday, so hatched a plan.
She revealed: "The minute that our booking had ended and we went and stood outside of the pub, I got my candles out and I got the whole group to sing 'Happy Birthday' as we gave the cake to my girlfriend."
But even then this was not over, as they were approached by staff.
She said: "One of the staff members comes out and says, 'Oh, I'm really sorry, you can't do that here, you're going to have to stand just across the road'. Why? Why?"
The video sparked a huge debate in the comments, with one commenting: "This is why people are leaving them UK. Capitalism end game is here."
Someone else wrote: "£140 for a cake fee is crazy."
Another begged: "Please tell us where so we can avoid in future!"
Others defended the outrageous charge, saying: "Controversial one but I used to charge a cakeage fee at my restaurant in specific cases," one person wrote.
"It was £5 per head in 2017/2018."
Another echoed: "Yes but from their point of view - that's 20 people who would have potentially paid upwards of £10 each for a pudding from their menu who are now eating Sainsbury's cake instead of spending money with them."
In a follow up video to 'cake-gate' Helena explained that she would not name the pub as she understood that the hospitality industry is going through an extremely tough time at the moment, with pubs closing at an alarming rate, and didn't want to make things more difficult.
Nonetheless, she stood by not paying £140 just to cut a Sainsbury's Basics cake.