Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Food
The Case Against Bringing Cakes Into Restaurants
By
Scott Heins
Published Jan 17, 2016
Modified Jan 17, 2016
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Scott Heins
Published Jan 17, 2016
Modified Jan 17, 2016
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Although the Cake Industrial Complex remains strong, we shouldn't kid ourselves: cakes are the sweatpants of pastries. They are pies without any heart, crust, or character. These store-bought sugar sponges have all the charm of personalized diamond anklets—until they become vessels for deeply disturbing viewpoints.
So if the world really is ending, you deserve to spend the little time you have left investing in finer pastries—or at the very least, not inflicting your Carvel cake upon hard working chefs and waiters at restaurants which provide their own desserts. Unless of course you love paying extra fees!
As The New York Times found out this week, some people continue to bring in their own cakes during meals out. Doing this leaves you open to a plating fee or "cakeage," which covers both the restaurants' lost sales and the labor costs of refrigerating and cutting up another business's product. In my own experience working years in the service industry, I also came to think of cakeage as a handy tariff on customers with no faith in their servers.
You can't bring your own wine bottle into a nice establishment without paying a corkage fee. In fact, you shouldn't bring any outside food into any restaurant. This is why we pound our Starbucks coffees before we walk into Dunkin' Donuts for an eclair fix. We're trying to have a civilization here! Still, Rose Levy Beranbaum, who published the sacrilegious Cake Bible, described being shocked when the Ace Hotel's Breslin charged her party of four $25 for sharing two slices of deep chocolate passion cake at the table. "She wanted her friends, both food professionals, to taste it," the Times recounts. "They told the waiter and asked for forks and plates. They were rebuffed and endured a humiliation she still calls 'the worst food experience I have ever had.'" That makes some sense, considering Beranbaum chose to eat cake.
Restaurant employees really do love it when customers come in for a celebratory meal. The mood is always brighter (and the check totals higher) at a big table ringing in an anniversary, birthday, engagement, or adult kickball league championship. Chances are your waiter will like you for you, and not just the auto-grat. The moment is important to you, and you chose to celebrate it with them—that's genuinely nice. But when you bring your own cake in as a dessert, you show a smug distrust in the kitchen's ability to hold up their end of the deal.
And so you open yourself up to ridicule, at places like Neal McCarthy's Instagram account, which is dedicated to the horrendous customer cakes he cuts up at Atlanta's Miller Union. "These people sought out a nice restaurant, yet they undermine it by bringing in the world's most hideous cakes," McCarthy told the Times. The best way to avoid this is to leave the damn cake at home—or better yet, stop eating cake altogether.
Tagged
cake haters united
cakeage
cakes
plating fee
restaurant etiquette
restaurants
Scott Heins
Scott Heins is a freelance photo and video journalist based in New York City, and a frequent contributor to Gothamist + WNYC. His work often centers around labor rights, housing, and policing. In 2018-2019 he traveled to four states while covering a wave of public school teachers strikes, with work featured in The New York Times, The Intercept, Getty Images, Splinter, and Bloomberg Photos. Scott is a dues-paying member of the National Writers Union's Freelance Solidarity Project.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE food
10 dishes that demonstrate the delicious diversity of curry in New York City
The global dish is shapeshifting and ubiquitous.
By
Robert Sietsema
Published Sep 12, 2026
Frozen yogurt is back in New York City. So are the super long lines.
Is it worth the high price and ridiculous wait? Gothamist needed to find out.
By
Sonia Rao
Food
Frozen yogurt is back in New York City. So are the super long lines.
Is it worth the high price and ridiculous wait? Gothamist needed to find out.
By
Sonia Rao
5 NYC banana puddings as good as Magnolia's
By
Hannah Frishberg
Where to eat in Greenpoint, Brooklyn right now, from Polish to Sichuan to Iberian
By
Robert Sietsema
Can a congressional candidate's dumpling diplomacy win over Queens’ immigrant communities?
By
Caroline Shin
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .