do you allow people to bring food in with them to eat in your place?
The only food I ever allowed in was birthday cakes and ice cream for birthdays. After all you are in the business of selling people food, and it looks bad to have someone with a McDonald’s bag on your table. I just think it sends a message to your other patrons that the food here isn’t that great so I got it from elsewhere! It might even be against your health departments rules and regulations, and that is what I would tell anyone trying to bring it in.
Only if they share it with me. :lol: There is a Dairy Queen across the parking lot from me and I have on occasion had people bring in their food and sit at my table to eat. I will often joke if you bring DQ to Daddio’s you need to bring Daddio DQ. If they are with someone who has ordered from me it is no big deal because I am a delco and do not expect the table space to generate business.
There is a cafe in the same strip mall that lost business from a construction crew because one of the 10 guys that cames in there had brought his lunch from home and was told he was not allowed to eat it there so the whole crew got up and left and never went back.
Don’t trip over a quarter to pick up the nickel. We really try our best to make policies for long term success and relationships with your customers. If it is a known customer, we generally will make a polite joke in normal conversation about it, so they know we noticed. If it is a close friend, they get grief. We generally don’t have space for strangers looking for a cool/warm place to eat what they bought up the street at the convenience store. Again, we let them know we notice them, and let them know that we prefer to use our space for paying customers . . . hand them a menu and offer them a special for the next time they are hungry. It turns out to be more intuition than black letter rules.
If a party orders food from us as well we don’t say anything. We do inform people that our seating is for “our” customers if they do not order from us. This really has only been an issue with vagrants and kids. People who would bring other food in and not order are usually the same ones that leave all there trash on the table and cigarette buds at the door as well.
“If” our dining was normally busy or full we would be more strict in that the majority of the food would have to be from us. It would really tick me off, and I think most people, if they walked into a place and purchased food but found no place to sit because seats were being taken up by non-paying visitors.
this weekend a couple of young folks late teens to early 20s came in our place and she ordered and he just went and sat down a few minutes later he was seen unwrapping a subway sub in our establishment. i just don’t go for that its not proper any way you look at it and if you allow it i feel you are spineless as a representative of whomever you work for. i dont think the health department wants it and i know our insurance company doesn’t want it and my tables in my place are for my paying customers. as a child i remember most places having signs saying “no outside food or drink allowed” i am going to hang mine back up again.
As your customers and their friends get accustomed to your policy and sign, you’ll probably begin to see voluntary compliance for the most part. At least there won’t be outside food snuck in under cover of darkness and complex diversionary tactics 
Let us know how it plays out in a few months. I am interested to know if you gets conversations with regular customers about their thoughts once they see your sign posted. Sign are magical conversation starters in our county.
What health department regulations prohibit someone from eating outside food in your establishement?
I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I can’t even think of a valid reason there would be such a rule.
I’m hanging one up this week as well - I’ve got a McD’s just a stones throw from my front door. Last week a group of 10 HS kids came in; one ordered our food and the rest had their McD bags (I wasn’t there - one of my rare days off). Will make exceptions for B-day parties, coffee (there’s also a Starbucks close by - we don’t sell coffee cuz we get so few requests for it), or people with extreme allergies.
If the kids whine, I plan on telling them that I’ll let them bring their outside food in just as soon as they convince the owner of McDonalds to pay me $1000 per month forthe use of my dining room. :lol: