A sandwich shop is offering “seagull insurance” to customers in Scotland amid “super aggressive and scary” gulls who steal up to 30 toasties a day.
The Cheesy Toast Shack in St Andrews has been giving away free replacements of the £6.75 sandwiches on a daily basis as seagulls attack customers for their purchases.
Owners say that customers would buy a sandwich, take a photo to post on social media and then return to the shop when a hungry seagull had stolen their lunch.
The situation has been costing bosses hundreds of extra pounds per day, so as a result, they have launched the optional £1 “gull insurance” for a replacement sandwich.
Owner, Kate Carter-Larg said the birds are “super aggressive and actually terrifying”.
She explained that as a family-run business, she “can’t just sit and watch a sandwich get stolen and not replace it”.
The 35-year-old added that people have been “left bleeding” and described the seagulls “as a real problem”.
Carter-Larg’s husband Sam – who thought of the idea – said they are considering adding the gull insurance on every purchase in an attempt to cover the losses.
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The bosses say the attacks have been “increasingly” worse over the last three years.
Some customers have even emailed the shop to express their upset after children were “left in tears”.
With the sandwiches costing £6.75, Carter-Larg said she feels responsible for making sure people get what they purchased – especially during difficult financial times.
She said that if visitors have chosen to “treat themselves and families for the week or even for the month, it’s a big deal”.
The Cheesy Toast Shack in St. Andrews has been giving away free replacements of the £6.75 sandwiches on a daily basis as seagulls attack customers for their purchases
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She added that in the summer, people can sometimes be waiting up to an hour when the shop is “really really busy”.
The mother said she can’t just “watch it get stolen” as “it’s such a horrible thing to happen”.
The Cheesy Toast Shack was set up in 2015 originally as a street food trailer before the St Andrews Kiosk was later installed in 2018.