h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hotels are places where people pay extortionate rates for the pleasure of sleeping in a bed in a room attached to a cupboard otherwise known as a toilet. In the morning they get up expecting breakfast, they are greeted in the restaurant by a table with bowls of assorted squirrel sh!t.
The waiting staff walk in belching and hung over from the previous revellous night out on the tiles, their breath still stinking of drink as they have just managed to drag themselves back from the club a couple of hours earlier. Clearing the used tables of the stone cold burnt toast they return to the kitchen to eat it in order to soak up the alcohol

The chef in the kitchen complaining of the heat that makes his hangover worse, the waiter asks for a kipper, just the thing that you want to prepare whist your stomach is still under the influence of drink, you get it out and throw it unceremoniously on a baking sheet and put it in the oven 5 mins later your presented with this hot smelly fish

What do they put in hotel cooked breakfasts that they instantly sink to the bottom of your stomach and leave you feeling bloated for hours afterward?
I never get this feeling when I make a cooked breakfast myself.

Excuse me!!!! I have worked in hotels for the last 15 years, and none that I have worked at serve 'bellybombs' for breakfast. As to their prices, well I could tell you a hell of a lot about why they SEEM expensive. If you really want me too I will tell you.
Lets put it this way: I work in a 4 star hotel in Canada, you can have abreakfast buffet, witheverything from bakery items, fresh fruitto eggs and bacon(in total 38 differnt foodstuffs) for $11.95, thats about 6 quid. When I last worked in England you could barely get bacon/eggs/toast/tea for that much. Nobody in the non hotel world realises how much it costs to do all this.. Most hotel restaurants work at a loss. Let me ask you this. You order bacon and eggs, not only did someone get up, probably hours before you, but then 1 person took your order, another person cooked it, thats two people. How much do you charge per hour to work, not including, rental of premises, gas, electricity, etc. Trust me there are many restaurants that do not make it. I have worked in many hotels, that do not make any money from the food departments. Once you have paid for the food itself (I will use industry averages here) 35%, kitchen staff 25%, wait staff 20%, then lease, electricity, gas, decor, flowers, or such like, you have very little left.
Look at today, you see very few people that make money in a stand alone restaurant, chains yes, because the cumulative effect of 100 restaurants returning $1000 per month (yes per month) works, but would you be happy owning A restaurant, that before it paid you out only made $1000 per month.
I worked at one hotel, that before I got there was losing LOSING 100,000 per year in its F&B, I turned that around, to in my first year I made a $200 dollar profit. And we were proud, do not think, what $200, thats less than I make i a week, but that we changed the department by $100,200, in one year.

Hey Ive worked in 3/4 star hotels for 15 years maybe Ive just got a different perspective but bed and breakfast in the lake district will set you back £30 at least mate! so where you get your breakfast at that price is macdonalds

The "Howe Keld" in Keswick does marvellous breakfasts but, then, I've been to a few B&Bs in the Lakes, and the quality does vary.

A French food writer (I forget who) said that to eat well in England, it was necessary to eat breakfast three times a day. The article should be titled "how to screw up the great British breakfast" 'cause, at it's best, it's brill!