33

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
  • 115
  • 4
mathreadler
  • 472
  • 1
  • 5
  • 13
  • 26
    Sure, I've done it, I think most hotels allow it, but it's an expensive breakfast. – ugoren Oct 01 '17 at 18:34
  • @JanDoggen : You are right, maybe I should instead ask about what it is called so that I can search better for it. – mathreadler Oct 01 '17 at 18:55
  • 2
    Did you search for "Hotel non resident breakfast"? https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186223-d2544270-r240052626-Premier_Inn_High_Wycombe_Central_Hotel-High_Wycombe_Buckinghamshire_England.html – Spacedman Oct 01 '17 at 19:57
  • 4
    In UK at least, seeing "Open to Non-Residents" on a hotel sign means the bar and restaurant are open for people not staying there. – Spacedman Oct 01 '17 at 20:05
  • 4
    What country are you asking about? Or, continent, even? – mattdm Oct 01 '17 at 20:15
  • What a great question! Every hotel I've stayed at that offers breakfast without needing to see a room card has made wonder, why can't I just walk in for breakfast? Who would even bother checking to see if I were a guest. – Michael Oct 01 '17 at 22:26
  • 1
    @Michael Well, I got the sense that'd be a slightly different question ;-) – David Z Oct 02 '17 at 05:56
  • 1
    Most big hotels allow you to have meals. However, especially breakfasts, are way more expensive than their value/price outside. I was thinking of writing an answer to detail why in certain scenarios you would want to do that, but that's really off-topic for this question. – Rui F Ribeiro Oct 02 '17 at 08:28
  • 1
    Hotels like to make money. This is completely normal. They'll often even give you an extremely good rate - especially of they have lots of food (like at the buffet breakfast), and not lots of guests to eat it. – Strawberry Oct 02 '17 at 09:01
  • Country? Type of hotel? – Chris H - UK Oct 02 '17 at 10:21
  • 6
    Sure you can do it, but you might consider just going to a restaurant which serves breakfast. I would expect there to be one in an area with multiple hotels as you describe. Usually, the food there is tastier and less expensive. – dirkk Oct 02 '17 at 11:51
  • Just for everyone's info, the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath UK is very strict about not allowing non-residents into the hotel before noon. You are asked to "go back and return at 13" if you land up there earlier. Please note this as there is literally no place for shelter close by and the hotel with its gorgeous views is located on top of a hill. – Ritha khemani Jun 12 '19 at 11:36

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
  • 44,461
  • 17
  • 100
  • 224
  • 4
    I would also expect hotels that offer a breakfast buffet in an in-house lounge or dining room not to make it available to non-guests. In my travel experiences, this is exceedingly common. Is there some particular reason you didn't mention it? – David Z Oct 01 '17 at 19:53
  • 4
    @David Hotels are usually happy to sell access to those buffets to non-guests. – lambshaanxy Oct 01 '17 at 20:17
  • @DavidZ If the hotel is a bread and breakfast-type that simply includes breakfast in the price of all rooms, then I can see not making it available to non-guests. But larger hotels with extravagant brunch buffets will generally sell them to the public, and some are quite legendary, say the Hotel del Coronado brunch in California ($96/person, yes, really). – Zach Lipton Oct 01 '17 at 20:55
  • 1
    @DavidZ - Nearly all breakfast buffets that I've seen offered guest access. Although I stay in many type of hotels, I haven't had the privilege of being in a highly exclusive property, so there's a whole category that is out of my price-range. – Itai Oct 02 '17 at 00:07
  • 2
    I'm not talking about bed-and-breakfasts, nor larger hotels with extravagant buffets. I'm talking about moderately priced chain hotels or similar that do nevertheless include breakfast in the price of every room. I guess I don't know if they offer breakfast access to non-guests, since I've never had reason to ask, but it would seem strange. I should check on that sometime. – David Z Oct 02 '17 at 05:55
  • Interestingly, some hotels do this via a "virtual room" function - they create you a room number for a non-existent room and bill it to that. – Neil P Oct 02 '17 at 08:02
  • 2
    @DavidZ I would find it strange for any moderately priced chain hotel to not offer breakfast (at a charge) to whoever walks in in the morning. I'm 100% sure they make money on the breakfasts and not allowing non-guests to buy their breakfast simply means making less money. – Jory Geerts Oct 02 '17 at 08:36
  • @JoryGeerts Well, I guess one of us has a miscalibrated sense of what is strange in this respect. Of course I'm also sure they make money on the breakfast in the sense that they think it increases their sales and/or justifies raising their room rate enough to cover the cost of the food and preparation... but pricing a non-guest admission to the breakfast buffet is a whole different calculation, and possibly one they're not set up to do. – David Z Oct 02 '17 at 08:42
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
  • 6,305
  • 2
  • 35
  • 81
  • 6
    Many of the European hotel chains do serve breakfast to walk-ins -- a lot of the other hotels in the Accor group do, for example, as do most Premier Inns in the UK (n the attached pub/restaurant) – Chris H - UK Oct 02 '17 at 15:35
  • What about hotels which don't fall into either category, and which will be the majority in many interesting places? – Peter Taylor Oct 02 '17 at 16:09
  • 1
    @PeterTaylor - as it says (I gave a long specific example) you phone them and ask. – Fattie Oct 02 '17 at 19:02
2

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
  • 29
  • 1
2

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
  • 121
  • 1