If your eyes are bigger than your stomach, one restaurant thinks you should pay the price for being too greedy. In an unprecedented move, Hayashi Ya [1], a Japanese buffet on Manhattan's Upper West Side, has begun adding a 30 percent surcharge for customers who don't finish food [2] on their plate. In other words, the restaurant's $26.95 meal deal is all-you-can-eat — but not a bite more. According to Hayashi Ya's manager Ben Lin [3], the motivation behind adding a surcharge was twofold. First, it's an incentive for customers to only take what they can eat, thereby cutting down on waste. Second, it prevents the eatery from obtaining a surplus of ingredients, which hurts the restaurant's profitability.

There's been a lot of discussion over this charge, but I think it's legitimate. In this tight economy [4], restaurants are fighting to remain profitable. Although entire civilizations across the globe are in dire need of food, studies show that anywhere between 30 percent and 50 percent [5] of edible food goes to waste. All factors considered, I think the surcharge is rather sensible. Do you think it's fair?

Source [6]