Celebrating your birthday at a restaurant surrounded by your besties and family is a normal tradition.

Usually at the end of dinner a cake will be brought out and everyone will erupt in singing "Happy Birthday" to the notoriously embarrassed subject.

Some restaurants allow customers to bring in their own cakes, while others have a strict policy and charge a cakeage fee — a set amount a restaurant charges to serve you and those in your party a dessert you've brought for the occasion.

One man divided the internet after he shared that he wanted to bring a cake to a specific restaurant as part of a birthday celebration and the establishment wanted to charge a cakeage fee of £10 (roughly $13 U.S.) per head.

"I asked the restaurant I’m going to for a birthday lunch today if we could bring a cake with [us] to be brought out at the end of the meal," @Ivorbaddiel tweeted. "They said yes, but they’d charge us cakeage (yes, cakeage) at £10 a head. What is this world we live in?"

The tweet instantly sparked a debate, with some taking the restaurant's side.

"It’s really rude to take your own food to a restaurant. Would you take your own conditioning treatment to the hairdresser & ask them to apply it? Or home-brewed cider to the pub & ask them to serve it? Tell them it’s a birthday, order their dessert & I’m sure they’ll add a candle," one person wrote.

Another commented: "It’s usually free if you order a dessert. After all, these places are there to sell food. Assume you’d want someone to cut and serve it as well? All free? A hospitality business is still a business."

Others were outraged at the thought of a "cakeage" fee.

"Personally, I'd have canceled the entire booking and found a restaurant that wanted your business. They truly don't care if you come back again or not… They don't seem interested in making my meal enjoyable at all. Just a transaction," one user scoffed.

"The restaurant can choose whether to provide that service or not, and the customer can then decide whether to go there or not. We don't *have* to provide everything you want. We do what we're good at and what keeps us profitable. People choose whether to come or not," another tweeted.

According to The New York Times, many "restaurant owners say cakeage covers the cost of the waiter’s time and washing the dishes. It also helps offset the loss of revenue from in-house desserts and makes up for the extra time a party will be at the table but not ordering food. And many hope it will slow the flow of outside cakes."

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