Is it reasonable for a hotel to ban guests from bringing food onto the property? This seems at least like a policy they would need to disclose to customers before they book.
A Marriott Courtyard has a sign posted on every floor that ‘outside food and drink’ is not allowed. Like a movie theater, if you want to eat at the hotel you have to buy your food from them. You can’t carry in food (or leftovers from where you went to dinner), and you can’t order DoorDash either.
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That drives up the cost of food, and it means you’ll often wait longer to eat. You probably have to order once you make it back to the hotel, instead of ordering before you return. And you can’t just drive through somewhere on the way. It’s an inconvenient and costly policy, and I imagine one that’s tough to enforce.
Many social media commenters suggest the policy was probably born out of hosting youth sports teams, brining in plenty of food and alcohol, and making messes and noise in common areas. Or is it just about driving up revenue?
It seems harder to enforce to outside food than to enforce quiet hours! And it makes life difficult for all guests, not just the problematic ones. And problems with youth sports or other groups stem from poor adult supervision as much as from the kids themselves.
This won’t last long. Marriott will loose too much business. They will only attract business people
Good to know, thanks Gary. Another reason to never ever stay at a Marriott property.
The food ban has to be illegal. What about snacks for children or low carb foods for diabetics or people with food allergies?
I’m on the side with the hotel. hotel guests literally dumped the trash at the corridor. the putrid odor went into the room. Hotels would be glad if they didn’t stay at their properties.
When they scaled back their dining/restaurant/room service options, wasn’t one of the arguments their Execs offered that “everyone can get Uber Eats or Door Dash now anyway”?
@ Gary — My response would be to go out of my way to bring food from the outside. This has to be illegal.
Would love to see them try to enforce it. Sorry, you don’t have the right to search my bags and personal items unless you have a warrant. Yes, I know they can just kick me out, but that isn’t going to happen or they will get blasted all over social media.
Given Hotels propensity to find bogus undocumented charges to add to bills, I would be sure to remove any food containers or leftover apple cores when leaving. I could see the $50 disposal fee showing up after checkout.
Name the hotel, location specifically.
Unenforceable.
The menu the Bistro is very limited, as are the hours.
Most are not open for lunch.
I suspect this has more to do with hotel security and people leaving food bombs in their rooms then it does restaurant revenue.
With Marriott revenues and profits at record levels, there is no reason for them to not continue on their path of devaluation and customer-restrictive policies. Unless and until the revenue needle moves, nothing is going to change. Accept it and move on.
There is a Courtyard near a major university (that is also run by said university’s hospitality program) that has a policy against no outside alcohol, mostly for underage drinking and room parties. I didn’t see a food prohibition, but they do have a restaurant/bar with a small menu in addition to the bistro for morning coffee and breakfast.
Just put the trash at hall way or elevator door, what else they can do?
Considering I’m on a liquid diet due to throat cancer, I’d like to see them enforce that with me… I could foresee quite a few legal issues with that…
I chose the Marriott to sleep, not to be forced to eat their food..
This is a violation of Marriott’s franchise agreement. The policy will soon be cancelled.
Not all Marriot hotels are owned by corporate. Many are private franchise owners so this is their rule. Not corporate. Sounds like this article is from a single, undisclosed location. Not disclosing the location is bs. Most hotels have very few, if any, trash cans available that can accommodate takeout or delivery waste, so where is the guest supposed to dispose of their trash? Room service trays are left outside the door with domes to cover plates.
I think Marriott aspires to reach the depths of Hertz. If so, they are doing a good job of sinking into the mud and catching up to Hertz.
Gary, just waiting for you to post a couple of story’s where Marriott had their guests arrested for soiling a towel or drinking a coke on property. It can’t be long now.
Doesn’t Marriott still have a partnership with UberEats, which presumably encourages guests to have food delivered to their hotel rooms? That Courtyard must be in violation of Marriott’s policy that allows outside food delivery.
The policy likely limited to the common area not guestrooms. Groups often congregate in common areas and leave a pile of trash behind. Hotels operate with a skeleton staff at night and clean up before the morning becomes an issue.
As usual, Gary left out most of the story including all of the explanatory points.
Sign was posted at a property with several teams for a kids sports tournament staying. I’ve had the misfortune twice recently to be at such a place on a weekend (usually near airports as they’re trying to sell inventory in blocks on weekends… places like the Homewood Suites in Phoenix I was at recently). These large groups tend to take over the bistro/lobby area with outside pizzas, parents with alcohol from offsite meeting in there and drinking all night. This hotel I was at had similar signs (though it said no consumption of any food/drink in lobby not provided by or bought from hotel). And they also had postings around the hallways taped up stating that “Quiet Time” starts at 10pm, nobody can loiter in hallways. Even at that, had two adults sitting in the hallway a couple doors down drinking beer in front of their doors.
If there isn’t a sign, they can’t take action because “You never told me I couldn’t.” When there was no room to throw away plates from the breakfast (well, what was left of it after being attacked by dozens of teens, and nowhere to sit) because filled with solo cups and pizza boxes, that’s what the hotels want to avoid.
I’m sure the signs were taken down after the groups left.
There are some jurisdictions though where technically you can’t bring alcohol onto property by law and consume it because it goes against the hotel’s liquor license. But that’s not many places.
The Marriot sub brands do a terrible job when it comes to food and beverages, in house. Terrible selection, significantly overpriced, awful ambiance. And poor quality. If they would address those issues that may alleviate the problem. And I might add, it appears to be heading that way with the mainstream brands also. Went to the actual Marriott in my hometown recently for dinner with my wife, the website showed an upscale steak house but when we arrived the restaurant looked and felt like a Courtyard. I’ve been a Marriott loyal customer for a long time, my rewards number begins with 001.
Totally lame and distorted reporting. Suggest you get another job.
Just stayed in a Courtyard two nights ago. No sign of such a sign. And good thing since the computer when down at the “restaurant” and they could not take any orders.
I suspect this is a policy established by the franchise owner and not Marriott corporate.
Where is this Courtyard? (so I know to NEVER go there)
Amazing that most of these comments are taking a stand against being restricted rather than pointing the finger at those that abuse the property by taking over floors, making more work for house keeping without any benefit for the hotel.
If they put trash receptacles in locations that the guests can easily access, they might solve their problem with trash in the hallways.
Last Courtyard I stayed at there were no visible trach receptacles anywhere but the small ones in my room.
Also, the last Courtyard I stayed at had a fridge and a microwave in the room.
Interestingly I just looked up the Marriott/Uber partnership on the Marriott website and found this:
Order Uber Eats at Designated Hotels†
Earn 2 points per dollar on Uber Eats restaurant and grocery orders of $40+ delivered to Residence Inn®, TownePlace Suites®, or Element® hotels.
SO Courtyard is not part of this and this might be how they got it “approved” by Marriott.
I would love to know exactly what the hotel would do if they caught you with food?
Has anyone contacted Marriott Corporate Services with clarification if this is enforceable – Marriott is known to let individual owners dictate stuff. So I’d be curious.
Lastly, if the hotel is worried about trash piling up in the hallways…then they should hire more staff to clean up the hallways. I stayed at a Courtyard in September and there was food bags in the hallway infant of some doors for 2 days…?????
I wish these hotels would provide some trash receptacles . I am happy to throw out my trash on the way out but they are either not to be found or so small they are already full.
When people use then when it should be than, I lose all respect.
Sounds like a typical Bombay Bob trying to squeeze money out of customers. Too many of them run scams or dirty hotels like not honoring the online cost or not swapping out bedding between customers.
Anyone wanna take bets on how long it takes for Marriott to walk this back and start crying ‘victim’ because people stop giving them business over this? Seriously, not quite sure who these ‘people’ think they are, but they have absolutely no right telling people where they can and can’t eat.
Who’s to say that you want or like what the hotel serves.
Will the restaurant be opened all day for me to eat there instead of outside.
Do the meals come with the room if not you can’t tell me what I can bring in as long as I clean up my mess.
Please name them.
It’s this particular location, not the chain in general.
They can’t legally enforce it if they didn’t disclose it before you paid for the room. If you reserve and pay ahead of time, that is. But if you reserve but don’t pay until checkout, it’s different legally.
As far as whether they would enforce it, do you think that they would evict someone over it? If they did, I’d expect them to not only have the guest refuse to pay , I’d also expect a call to HQ complaining.
Pfft. Sign says no outside food or drink. It does not say no outside trash. If i was confronted my food would be called my trash! Seriously doubt this would be enforced.
I worked for Marriott and they actually have a partnership with UberEats encouraging you to order through them to earn Bonvoy points, this is a case of a franchisee going rogue and should be reported.
More context is needed for the sign. Is the sign posted in the lobby/Bistro area? If so, it is probably indicating that outside food is not allowed in that area. Local health code probably prohibits the hotel from allowing outside food being brought into the Bistro. Would be because of food borne illnesses. Would be the same reason that you can’t bring your own food in when you go to a regular restaurant like McDonald’s or Applebee’s. I’m sure you can still bring food into the hotel to eat in your room
everyone say after me: “AirBnB”
‘No DoorDash, No Leftovers, No Exceptions’- I don’t understand where that quote is coming from. It’s not on the sign. Does that mean Uber Eats is ok?
Marriott needs to deal with their bedbug problem.
In other news Marriott has publicly announced that in addition to the new dining policy
of no incoming food that use of the guest bathroom will be prohibited and all guests will need to do their business @ the local Starbucks.Please prepare yourself accordingly
We appreciate your loyalty and busine$$
Well, there’s one rule I would thoroughly ignore. If it was disclosed at reservation time, I’d not go there; and if it’s just some sign in the place, well, that’s not what I signed up for.
I was at one place that gave notice that one might be charged for food stains (… since there were both an Indian restaurant and one that sold racks of BBQ ribs nearby, I assume people’d sit in the bed eating BBQ or curry and get sauce on the sheets.) But that’s different, it’s pretty standard to already be “on the hook” for any room damage and it’s just giving notice about this specific type of room damage, as opposed to laying out a very unexpected policy after one is already in the hotel.
(Since I can’t edit my own post…)
I didn’t read enough comments first — Yeah bringing a big group to a hotel with no meeting rooms, and deciding you’re just have them loiter about in the lobby and bistro with pizzas and whatever the hell else, that’s no good. I would have phrased the sign differently, but I can see popping up a sign at that point.
I love the people who say it’s “illegal”. Like there are laws about this. What it definitely is is a violation of the basic franchise agreement between the hotel owner and Marriott. The fact that this location is not named means to me that this is not real, because if it were true why not name the location so that people could complain to Marriott. If it’s true – name the location and report it to Marriott. That is what a real news article would do.
Based on the comments, Gary won at clickbait and lost at actually informing his readers.
Screw Marriott. If challenged at the hotel tell them–NO. I provide MY food and if Mgt doesn’t like it, call the Cops. Also, challenge the final hotel bill w/your credit card company for fraudulent services charge. Jam Marriott with challenges and they’ll surrender.
I find it funny when higher end or more “expensive” hotels try to limit their guests on normal things people do at hotels, like bringing in food or drinks, when 90% of the time there are countless other hotels usually right near them of similar caliber. Once a year, I go to a convention, and if I experienced something like this or a hotel tried to enforce this (you can pry my energy drinks from my cold dead hands!) I would simply take my business elsewhere. Frankly, I have no desire to give money to or do business with companies that treat me like an ill-mannered toddler when I’m paying them $$ in order to relax and enjoy myself
Saw this on the reddit sub yesterday and figured it would only be a matter of time before the click bait made it here.
At some point corporate needs to put their foot down on brand consistency with franchisees rather than trying to increase their footprint by pushing conversions.
Stripping the license from the franchise owner of the property in question because it jeopardizes the value of external partnerships for corporate (Uber Eats) would be a small step in the right direction.
It feels more likely to me that the policy is intended to curb the consumption of outside food in public spaces .. like a group taking a bunch of take out pizzas into the lobby seating area and make a mess. There’s no way they could stop you from taking left overs from a dinner out back to your room… And I doubt they would stop an individual adult from getting a door dash order.