This may surprise bitches, given my dual passions of food and strongly expressing an opinion, but I actually don’t like to make a big scene at a restaurant if there’s a mishap with the service or my meal. Nor do I have the inclination to post about the injustice of my unspread schmeared bagel in a video online later. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that, it’s just not my way. Obviously I am way out of sync with the rest of modern day culture on this, at least when it comes to posting about a bad food experience after the fact. Which brings us to LA-based food influencer @justinelovesushi. Last week, Justine and 10 friends dined at Poza, the rooftop restaurant of L’Ermitage Beverly Hills. The party of 11 brought their own cake, and evidently there was a serious miscommunication between the group and the restaurant, because upon getting the check, Justine & Friends were shocked by the cake cutting fee: $10/person x 11 people = $110. So Justine posted an Instagram video about the fee, and got a full sheetcake of responses, including from the restaurant itself.
“$110 just to cut a cake is honestly wild, I understand upscale restaurants have service fees and policies, but at some point it starts feeling completely disconnected from reality,” one person wrote in response to the viral clip on X.
But after the backlash exploded online, the restaurant quickly tried to smooth things over.
“We are so sorry you were not properly informed of our cake cutting fee,” Poza wrote in a public Instagram response. “Please know that is not reflective of our standard and you should have been notified of the fee once you brought the cake. As you weren’t informed, we’d be happy to refund the fee and invite you and a friend back to Poza to have a proper experience.”
The restaurant has since lowered the price per person to slice a cake — to $5.
Despite the sticker shock, a surprising amount of online reaction sided with the restaurant.
Commenters across X and Instagram argued that cake cutting fees are common at upscale restaurants, especially when customers bring desserts from outside vendors instead of ordering in-house.
“This shows how cheap you are, you brought 11 guests, you brought your own cake because you want to feed 11 people dessert and not pay for dessert, you interrupted the kitchen staff busiest time of the night, to cut your cake, and you’re also gonna use forks and plates to eat your cake and then they have to wash your dishes and clean your mess, absolutely you pay $10 per person,” one commenter wrote.
Another added: “This is totally normal—$10 per person is cheaper than what most nice restaurants charge per person.”
Others blasted the influencer for publicly shaming the restaurant over what they viewed as a miscommunication rather than a scam.
Justine did post a follow up video crediting Poza with reaching out to her, refunding the $110, inviting her back, and permanently reducing the cake cutting fee to $5/person. Then, hilariously, Justine spent the rest of the video saying it was unfair of people to bombard Poza with one-star reviews. But… they did that after watching Justine’s first video! What did she think would happen, lol?!
My thoughts on this took a winding road, which I shall try to recreate for you now: first, I questioned why don’t I have cake handy right now? Next, I figured before cutting deeper into the matter that it’d be wise to check Poza’s menu to see if they even serve desserts of their own. You know, to confirm that Justine was in fact bringing in a food item that technically could have been ordered off the menu. So I look up the menu and immediately clock that there are NO PRICES listed. Anywhere. That usually means… you don’t want to know the prices, and should have definitely been a big clue for Justine & Co of what kind of bill they were in for. After the lack-of-sticker shock, I scrolled down to the (unmarked) dessert section, where the offerings were indeed unremarkable, imo: Seasonal Fruit, Mango Pudding, Chocolate Mousse, and POPSICLES. Yeah, I would absolutely be looking elsewhere for dessert, too, but why not move the party to a new dessert-forward venue? Or to someone’s home?? Or to MY home?! Seriously, why don’t I have cake in this house???
Then, I admit, I honestly wondered if Poza had actually communicated the fee structure to Justine, and maybe it just didn’t compute until all totalled on the check. I don’t know. All I can say, in conclusion, is that $110 is a ridiculous amount to pay for drawing a knife in straight lines. Yet on the other hand, I’m not surprised by a fancy schmancy place charging that high a fee. The only thing I am certain of in all of this, is that I am on my way to obtain cake. Right now!
Photo note by CB: The photo on the homepage is from JustineLoveSushi’s Tawain haul video
Perhaps instead of a per-person fee, restaurants should just charge a flat $25 or $50 cake cutting fee.
Bingo
That’s a good thought. At first I thought it outrageous, but then read the comment about the work, time, plates, forks, etc., and thought, OK, yeah, you should charge something. I mean, bringing outside food to a restaurant is a pretty snotty thing to do, anyway. But charging a flat rate seems reasonable.
Well she brought the cake and had 11 people to feed. If it were me I would have cut the cake myself. The cake could not have been too big to just do it yourself.
There are restaurants that literally won’t let you cut your own cake IF they even let you bring a cake. They cite sanitation issues.
I do know also from work events I’ve billed out (I do accounting) that a lot of venues indeed slide cake cutting fees in. There are so many fees that they don’t mention when it comes to large parties (outside of the ones they WILL mention) it’s wild.
@Susan, Good luck eating your cake on imaginary plates lmao
I have never heard of a cake cutting fee. Remind me never to go restaurants where there are no prices on the menu unless someone else is paying 😉
A lot of restaurants charge a fee if you bring your own cake, similar to a corking fee if you bring your own wine (regardless of if the menu has prices or not.) I do think $10 per person is a bit ridiculous, but I’m also a little surprised that no-one bothered to check into it ahead of time.
I wonder if the influencer was told and she interpreted it as a flat $10 fee and not a $10 per person.
What? Of course there are charges. Its not cutting the cake, per se, it’s staff for said cutting and delivery ,its plates that need supplying and washing, its Cutlery that needs supplying and washing. Restaurants are also missing out on people ordering dessert. Its bizarre people think this is a big deal when byo corkage can be $15 pp easily and often more.
Exactly, thank you.
💯 @lamb chop it’s called a cutting fee but it’s to cover everything you listed and especially that customer is eating their own food in a restaurant that makes money selling good. The restaurant is not a public service it’s a business.
I don’t understand any of this outrage. It’s Beverly Hills not Chuck e Cheese (although I bet they have strict fees around cakes too!)
$110 to cut a cake, We are living in a state of perpetual hell, I swear.
Honestly, truly.
Why am I craving cake for breakfast! Bring a fork and skip the slicing.
“This shows how cheap you are, you brought 11 guests, you brought your own cake because you want to feed 11 people dessert and not pay for dessert ? . . “
I find this comment weird. Do people transport deserts to restaurants to avoid buying deserts? Whenever we have dinner out to celebrate birthdays we bring our own cake. That’s the only time we’d bring food of any kind into a restaurant
I find it weird going to a restaurant that doesn’t do cake, especially for birthdays.
To me, a $10 per person cake-cutting fee is reasonable when you consider the actual labor and overhead involved. In Los Angeles, minimum wage is already $18.24/hour, and restaurants are paying servers, bussers, bartenders, dishwashers, and kitchen staff accordingly. Bringing in an outside cake still requires staff time to refrigerate it, plate it, cut it, serve it, clear the table, and wash all the extra dishes and utensils afterward.
Restaurants operate on extremely thin margins, and outside food means they’re not earning revenue from desserts they normally sell. The same principle applies to corkage fees for outside wine. If customers want the convenience and service of enjoying their own cake in the restaurant, it’s fair for the business to charge for the labor, supplies, and table service involved.
It is a restaurant not a picnic.
Where I am restaurant staff can be earning 50/hr easily in high end places. They’re in high demand.
Cake cutting fees are normal, like corkage fees. You bring outside food to a restaurant, expect them to serve it to you, you pay for that.
The only time I’ve seen an issue with a cake charges was a wedding at a hotel where the couple had a bakery bring their wedding cake, the place cut and served it to the 50 guests, charged a cutting and service fee, took the rest of the cake back to the kitchen, including the untouched top layer the couple had plans for, and instead of boxing the remaining cake up (as the couple had requested and been charged for) the manager cut it up and gave it to staff to eat, take home.
Couple was pissed … they had paid a lot for a special cake and had planned to bring the top layer to a lunch the next day to share with some favorite older family members who hadn’t been able to join on the day. You bet the place refunded 100% of the cutting charge, and took a more off the bill as well.
YES. You are paying for the restaurant staff’s TIME because they aren’t making any money from their own food. And in LA, that time is very expensive.
Not knowing about a cake cutting or wine corkage fee just tells me this influencer has never been to a nice restaurant like this before. It’s extremely standard and embarrassing that she’s so loud and wrong about it.
Edited to add: totally agree with @CrankyOldLady.
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I will probably end up having a minority opinion, but I agree with the person quoted in the text who said the fee isn’t only for actually cutting the cake, but also for the service — plating it, meaning dirty plates and forks afterwards, bringing the cake to the table.
So I think the $ 10, considering it’s a high(er) end place, is justified. And a food influencer should have known what the service entails *and* should have asked beforehand how much the fee would be.
Tbh it’s obvious very few people commenting, if any, have run a business. I’m flabbergasted at the comments. I doubt these people work for free.
They’re not really charging for cutting the cake. They’re charging for washing all the plates it’s served on and for the fact they you will still be taking up table space while not purchasing a Dessert from them. (Former wedding planner!)
Agree with this. $110.00 for 11 people to take up space and not eat your restaurant’s food seems totally reasonable. That’s another 30 minutes -1 hour that other diners can’t use that space and aren’t ordering dishes.
the fee is awkwardly named, but in any restaurant, especially upscale, there are fees for bringing in outside food or drink. If you bring your own wine you also have to pay a corkage/corking fee. Deserts and drinks are the most marked up things on any restaurant menu, thats where they turn the most, and perhaps any profit.
The fee is meant to balance the loss of sales income while still having to properly store and chill the brought items, serve them, the use of restaurant glassware etc. Here (i am Dutch) its usually a flat rate.
I feel very lucky to live in a town that has a decent amount of BYOB places (a rarity in the Boston area) and the three that I have gone to did NOT charge a cork fee.
$25 seems sufficient enough for a cake cutting fee, not $110. I get that the extra charge means a larger tip for the server but realistically $110 bucks goes back to the owner, not the servers/washers who do all the work.
Nah, it has to be per person and there has to be rules. It’s just because there will be a time when someone comes in with a giant cake for 20 ppl and $25 would not be worth it for the extra labor and cleaning and also the missed revenue. It would not be worth it for ANYONE, not just the owners.
Corkcage is for that exact last reason. Corkage prices have been going up in the restaurant industry because when you BYOB you are literally bringing in a wine at cost and using the restaurant’s labor and time to drink it.
I feel like a lot of people in the comments have a fundamental misunderstanding how BYOB works in state like MA. Where I live it’s harder and more expensive to get a liquor license because of state caps and it’s not unusual for a liquor license to cost $600K on a secondary market. BYOB is not an *alternative* to purchasing wine off the menu–it simply allows restaurants without liquor licenses to compete with restaurants that can legally serve booze.
And everyone should be opposed to that kind of an inequitable market because it’s all about protecting the value of the liquor licenses over equitable distribution and fair competition among restaurants. The entities that profit from liquor licenses are divided between existing bar/restaurant owners who sell their licenses on the private market, and large, deep-pocketed corporate restaurant groups that can afford the insanely expensive liquor licenses.
New restaurants often wait months or even years to open, waiting to secure a liquor license because of their exclusive and scarce nature. Not cool.
@kitten
Then you’re debating a completely different topic. Cake cutting fees (and corkage fees) in a different state is not related to the liquor license issue in MA. So our “fundamental misunderstanding” shouldn’t be surprising.
In my days working in restaurants I’ve had to cut up cakes that have been brought in. It’s really nerve wracking as you want all the food you serve up to look nice and some of those cakes didn’t slice nicely. I had one woman scream in my face, she was inches away, that I had deliberately ruined her birthday because I hadn’t made allowances for people turning up late just for the birthday cake. I was told to take all the plates into the kitchen and to reslice the cake. FYI I can’t do magic. Then she screamed at me to make the plates look pretty with cream and some decorations, which she wasn’t prepared to pay for. This was in London in a supposedly posh part.
This is one of those cases where we fall back on the “every one should be forced to work at a restaurant at one point in their life” lol. Yes, $110 is high, but if you bring your own cake, you should know there will probably be a cutting fee (per person) and you should confirm it before you ask for the service.
Have y’all ever even seen a restaurant walk-in refrigerator and how beyond capacity the shelves are at? When someone brings a cake, we often have to store it for them too! The number of times a damn cake has been in my way multiple times a night is insane. And I’m front of the house. If I were a cook, that cake box would be my 13th reason lmao.
Everyone should have to work in a restaurant for a million reasons.
I once had to cut and serve a massive cake at my fancy country club restaurant job. The mean lady told me it cost her like $500 and don’t you dare f*ck this up.
$500 is more than I made in a month, AND I’d never actually cut a proper cake before. I usually just ate mine with a fork out of the pan.
100% everyone should work in a restaurant once in their life (or any public-facing service job, actually)!!! People can be so awful to workers.
Absolutely agree @Alarmjaguar. I worked in food service many years ago for a long time.
Now, if this ‘foodie influencer’ had told the restaurant, hey we’re bringing our own cake is there a charge for that? Or something like that recognizing that it might cost the restaurant time & $$. To expect a restaurant to serve and slice a cake @ no charge is ignorant. A kindness if done.
It might be a stretch, it’s like going to a restaurant bringing your own tenderloin fillets, russet potatoes and whatever and then thinking the restaurant won’t charge you for making it.
Yeah I don’t think people get how much goes into getting your food and drink to your table. A lot of people will say, oh well you make such good tips at your fancy restaurant! Does that mean we have to eat s—t all day? The fact that most people don’t get it is a testament to your servers and bartenders’ skills. They’ve shielded you from the inner workings and made you feel comfortable that the operation is smooth when in fact it’s a constant dumpster fire we’re trying to keep at bay. We have to never make you feel at fault when it is almost ALWAYS your fault lol. And then do it with our friendly voices or you’ll complain we’re rude.
It’s a high-end LA restaurant. Three years ago, on Reddit, someone posted a receipt from a different LA restaurant. Ten people: cake-cutting fee, $100. That equals to $10 a person. They were asking if this was normal in LA. The $10 per person charge referenced in the article on here is no different in fee than three years ago in another LA restaurant.
Two responses from the post three years ago.
“Am a server and had to cut a cake AND serve 10 coffees last night. The time it took was enough to get two tables sat and for one table to get butthurt that I took too long to take their order after they suggested they needed time for the second time. Cake service is no joke lol. I’d be pissed if it were free.”
“I was a pastry chef and it’s that they want you to buy their desserts, yes, but it’s also not trivial to cut up a cake in the middle of dinner service. And you’re using their plates/forks, which then have to be cleared and washed. When I worked in a mid-range restaurant about 15 years ago, it was $7 ish per piece. ”
So, this former pastry chef three years ago mentioned that 15 years ago (so 18 years from now), at his midrange restaurant, it was $7 per piece.
Yep — all of this. I’m with the restaurant — as long as Justine was properly informed about the cake cutting fees. I can’t tell from this post if plans to bring the cake were arranged as part of the reservation process, or if the group just showed up with a cake.
In addition to using the restaurant’s plates, flatware and servers, they are both not buying desserts and taking up table-time that could be used by other customers, so the restaurant is potentially losing quite a bit of money between the service and the inability to turn over the table. I think a service fee seems fair, and $10 per person is not unreasonable, especially for a large group. I think the size of the group is relevant since it’s likely that along with cake serving, time may have been taken up with other requests— like pouring more water or other beverages.
As an aside, severally years ago, I attended a birthday meal at a restaurant where one of the guests unexpectedly brought a cake. As I remember it, the restaurant gave up plates and forks and one of the guests sliced and served the cake. Once all of us were served, the waitress came over and politely asked if she and another server could have some cake. Win-win. lol
Humans are not mature enough to have the power to rate places. They just aren’t.
Justine was perfectly correct to criticize the restaurant online. She did not make a scene AT the restaurant, and she was justified in making this complaint.
Also, Justine looks cute as hell!
I have mixed feelings on this.
As a former server (all through college), I can see the purpose of the fee. But as a customer, I’ve resented having to pay it — but I still did, because I get it, someone has to wash those plates even if you cut the cake yourself.
I’m another person who thinks a stint as a restaurant worker should be part of a standard education.
People have no idea what goes into making and serving even the simplest food in a commercial establishment.
Too many people approach the whole topic of restaurants solely from the customer’s POV. Yet they feel qualified to judge how a business should be run.
Are you going to tell your mechanic the specifics of how he should fix your engine? Your surgeon how he should hold his scalpel? Not unless you have acquired some specific knowledge of the craft, unless of course you’re just an entitled twit.
But since most folks can feed themselves, everybody thinks they could run a restaurant.
I’m not mad about this. Restaurants are providing plates, utensils and labor for food that you didn’t even purchase in their restaurant.
I’ve stayed at L’Ermitage Beverly Hills – it is one of my most favorite hotel experiences. It’s private and luxurious, and feels very exclusive when you are in the hotel. Service is extremely attentive; they wait on you hand and foot. The pastry chef at that time must have been very skilled because I had French macarons waiting for me as a welcome treat in my room and they were some of the best macarons I’ve had outside of Paris (they are one of my favorite treats so I consider myself a connoisseur.) I’m sure the hotel is mortified by this publicity because they are the definition of quiet, understated luxury. So long story short, given the restaurant is in-house it is probably the same, with most guests understanding what they’re in for before they walk through the doors.
I think it would be very beneficial if Justine were to list what jobs she has worked prior to becoming an influencer. Double points if they were not working for a relative.