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I'm wondering how common it is for hotels to allow people to pay for breakfast even if they don't have a room. In other words:

  1. Come in the morning

  2. Pay a fixed price in reception

  3. Eat breakfast

  4. Leave

I did some google searches, and absolutely nothing came up.

Do you know of any such hotels and/or what it costs?

Edit: I am curious about this because I often stay at places which don't offer as nice a breakfast as many hotels do, and once in a while it would be nice to have a big meal without having to stay at the hotel for one night just to get a good breakfast.

sam1370
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mathreadler
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4 Answers4

23

This is common but it really depends on the hotel, so asking so generically is rather broad.

In many hotels, breakfast is served in a restaurant on the property. Some rooms include breakfast in the price and others may not. Guests that do not have breakfast as part of the package, can pay for breakfast separately and non-guests can simply pay the price too. For anything but small hotels, the same locale is available to paying customers for other meals, regardless if they are guests or not.

Even if you have breakfast included as a guest, you can often pay for extras or for an entirely different breakfast, so it makes sense for the hotel to offer this to non-guests as well. For example, a cold food may be included but people can order warm or cooked-to-order meals.

The time I would expect a hotel not to offer this service if for small ones that usually leave a few food items in a room as breakfast for the guests to self-serve. In that case, there would be no attendant to charge for food. Such places are often not accessible directly without going through reception. On the other hand, hotels that operate as restaurants often have an extra door leading to the outside that is used by non-guests.

Itai
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4

The answer is very simple,

At "large, posh" hotels you can absolutely come in to the restaurant (for breakfast, lunch or dinner) or the bars (for drinks) simply as a normal person, pay money, and eat/drink.

The full service restaurants in "traditional" hotels are indeed simply "restaurant businesses as such".

Indeed, in most cities the most famous restaurants (for breakfast, or lunch or dinner) are indeed the restaurants situated in a hotel.

If the OP is thinking of, let's say, "hotel chains" such as Ibis in Europe, or Hampton Inn etc in the US. At such "hotel chains", simply no, you cannot generally just arrive and take part in breakfast, it's only a thing for hotel guests. The hotel chains don't really have a full service restaurant, they simply have a process where guests get a breakfast in the morning.

So quite simply,

  1. At let us say "traditional" hotels, sure, the restaurants are full-service restaurant businesses in themselves: of course you can go in and have breakfast, as at any restaurant.

  2. If you're thinking of "hotel chains" (Eg, Ibis, Motel6, etc) no, they simply do not have "restaurants" as such. There's just a facility where guests are fed breakfast. There's no sense in which you can "go in and pay for a meal" (for example, they wouldn't even have a cash register, etc).

If you ask "how to distinguish between the two", the only answer is "ask"!

With typical mid-range chains, it's hard to guess which category a hotel falls in. You just call and ask! "Is the restaurant open for breakfast, or only guests?"

Fattie
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Hotels that include the price of breakfast in the room fee (aka breakfast is available to all guests) need to know about how much they are spending per-person to break even on food costs. The managers should know this number, and if you are polite (maybe even calling in advance), it's very possible they will just ask you to pay that per-person amount and let you eat.

I only know of this in more rural areas where the risk of hundreds of people coming in off the streets to eat breakfast is low, though; it's possible this would be a lot less common in more urban markets.

Matt
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I just wanted to share my experience, I used to have a gym membership at a large hotel chain here in the UK (Village hotels) and they actually advertised breakfast and the walk in price. I have a membership at Hilton and quite commonly use the gym before work and eat breakfast - they offer discounts for gym members.

David Lindon
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