Call them “cereal” thieves.
It’s not just guests who are taking advantage of complimentary hotel breakfasts — growing number of people off the street are purportedly waltzing into the establishments to snag a free meal.
Entire Reddit threads full of freeloaders are boasting about stopping by a hotel for a free breakfast without even booking a room.
“Enter any mid-class hotel (ex: Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn, Days Inn, etc.) right around the time they start serving breakfast and the lobby is empty,” bragged one. “Most hotels of this class serve free breakfast.”
The scrambled eggs squatter advised aspiring breakfast brigands to “walk to the bathroom and stay there for 10 minutes or so” before walking to the “breakfast bar” to eat.
Content creators have also tested out the illegal act.
“They make it so easy to get the free hotel breakfast when you’re not staying at a hotel,” declared TikTokker Sophia Masso in a video with over 5 million views.
Accompanying footage shows the inn-terloper chowing down on eggs, sausage and more at an undisclosed accommodation.
“As long as you don’t look homeless you’ll be ok,” they assured viewers. “If questioned by anyone say you’re waiting on your wife/husband to come down.”
“The trick is to not go for the upscale resorts,” cautioned one commenter, instructing people on how to put their, well, lack of money where their mouth is. “Nice places are much more apt to catch you or have protocols in place that prevent this.”
They added, “Common hotels with bland generic breakfast are a dime a dozen and super easy to walk into. I’ve literally jogged into them like I’m getting BACK from a morning run, eaten breakfast, and walked out.”
Even a View From The Wing contributor Gary Leff copped to nearly going inn-cognito at a breakfast buffet.
“I stayed at the Aloft near Dallas Love Field and selected breakfast as my Marriott elite member amenity,” he recalled. “Breakfast was served in the Element hotel next door. I simply walked into that hotel and no one checked that I was a guest or eligible for breakfast. I could have taken the elite check-in bonus points and still had breakfast!”
Although he wondered if the orange juice was truly worth the squeeze given the middling nature of many of these hotel breakfasts.
“Most limited-service breakfasts, though, aren’t going to be so good that you’d show up for it if you aren’t already on premises,” Leff said. “But if I was nearby, and hard up, maybe I’d go for a meal justifying it like hero Jean Valjean steals the bread in Les Miserables.”
In 2021, former hotel employee from Tennessee divulged the revolting reasons why guests should forgo eating breakfast at lower-tier hotels.
“If your hotel serves, like, a hot continental breakfast or whatever — eggs, waffles, stuff like that — don’t eat that s–t,” warned Brandi Augustus, 36, a 15-year veteran of the hospitality industry, warned.
She cited the fact that hotel workers at her old gig often didn’t wash hands or use gloves when handling the vittles, baked goods were recycled for days, and how the waffle makers reused batter so many times that it fermented.