Is this the strictest carvery in Britain? The pub owner goes to war with the regulars after charging them extra for wasting food… would YOU pay a waste charge?

A pub owner who charged ‘entitled’ customers extra for their Sunday carvery because of their ‘excessive’ leftovers has vowed to continue the controversial policy.

Mark Graham, 62, a landlord and chef at The Star Inn at Vogue in Redruth, Cornwall, introduced the policy after noticing an increasing number of incidents.

Mr Graham said customers are “increasingly” leaving large amounts of food on their plates, with large amounts of food going to waste.

But his draconian rules caused a furore after grandmother Verity Farmer complained about being charged an extra £4.80 for her £12 per person carvery.

“I’ve never heard anything like that before,” she said. But Graham is not one to back down from a fight and has hit back by saying the pair’s leftovers were ‘extremely excessive’.

The food left behind resulted in a charge of £2.40 each at The Star Inn

Mark Graham, 62, made the decision after noticing the two women were leaving a lot of food behind

The pub has a clear policy on the £12 all-you-can-eat carvery posted on the walls

He wrote on Facebook: ‘If you leave a few pieces of etc. behind, there is of course no problem. Where the problem arises is pure waste.

‘It’s just not practical to allow such waste when margins in business are so tight. If everyone did the same as you, I would have to prepare enough food for 200 people to serve 100.”

Supporting his claims to the BBC, Mark continued: ‘When we looked at this sign they piled it high so you could put a ladder and a flag on top.

“It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet, not an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

The pub has a clear policy on the £12 all-you-can-eat carvery posted on the walls.

Mr Graham said: ‘I just think they were entitled and thought they could do whatever they wanted.

‘In addition to bar staff, I am also a chef. I came out and spoke to them and explained that the charge was for excessive waste.

“One of them said she couldn’t eat it all and I told her I’d seen her pile about two meals worth of food onto one plate and then just leave it.”

Mr Graham explained that he had introduced the policy after the lockdown, as the pub trade scrambled to get back on its feet.

“After Covid there was an awful lot of waste,” he said. ‘We do more than one “all you can eat” – we do curry nights, Indian nights and all kinds of other things. People would just fill their plates really high so it was dripping off the sides, and we started to think it was disrespectful.”

The Star Inn in Cornwall is an award-winning pub that offers a variety of cuisine

Mr Graham, who has worked in pubs since he was 14 and has been the landlord of The Star Inn for 20 years, added: ‘I say what I think and that’s the way it is. That was the first time we had to file the charges, and the first thing I did was send my staff back to ask if everything was okay.

‘The customers said the food was delicious and it was. I don’t care if there are a few potatoes left over. It’s just stupid, excessive waste that bothers me.

He continued: ‘We are just a village pub, untouched by time. I’m here to make a living, not kill. I don’t rip people off. But it’s a two-way street and customers have to play fair too.

‘I was serving the carvery that day and I remember they loaded their plates sky high with food, so high you could have put a ladder on the side of it and put a flag on it!’

He said the two women only went to the carvery once, but added: ‘There were easily two portions of food on each plate.’

Mr. Graham took a photo of the plates and showed that they were filled to the brim with slices of meat, roast potatoes, lots of vegetables and some crackling.

He said the small surcharge would only contribute to the cost of raw materials, but not to the cost of equipment used to prepare the food or pay staff.

Pub landlord Mark Graham outside The Star Inn at Vogue in Redruth, Cornwall

“You can take as much as you want, come back as many times as you want and, as the old Navy saying goes, you can fill your boots.” Do what you want, but don’t waste it,” he continued.

“We get people to eat a plate’s worth, then come back for more and instead of eating it, they ask for a box to take it away.”

He said the pub is happy to accommodate such requests from the a la carte menu, ‘as price is taken into account’. But he added on Facebook that the “surplus food” policy was “only for all you could eat where you serve yourself.”

Verity Farmer, one of the customers who paid the surcharge, complained on Facebook, saying: ‘I’ve just been to a Sunday carvery at the Star Inn, Vogue, St Day.

‘We paid for our meal at £12 each, and when we got our bill there was an extra £4.80 added. When we questioned about it they said it was compensation for not eating all our meals. I’ve never heard anything like that before.’

Since her post, more than 400 comments have been posted, including one from The Star Inn’s account, which said: ‘We’re just trying to make sure there’s enough food for everyone.

‘I’m sure if you had been a customer later in the day and I had had to tell you that I had run out of food for your booking because it had all been thrown away and gone in the bin, you wouldn’t have been very happy and had it done, another post on social media.’