A man claims to have spent thousands of dollars eating at his new favorite location – hospital cafeterias.
Omar Shafiq, 33, told news agency SWNS that he has eaten more than 700 meals at various hospitals throughout the United Kingdom, spending a total of £10,000 (nearly $13,000) since 2022.
And while one might think that Shafiq must have had a string of sick loved ones to merit spending this much time in hospital cafeterias, this is not the case.
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Instead, he said he is eating at hospitals because he finds the food to be excellent value for the price – and because it is just plain good.
Shafiq started eating at hospital cafeterias when he was visiting his father in 2022 at a hospital after he worked late shifts.
It was at that point he discovered he could get a meal of a baked potato, a drink and a chocolate bar for less than $10. The cafeteria meal "satisfied his nostalgia" for the meals he would eat at school, SWNS reported.
Hospital food, Shafiq said, is both better tasting and better value than food from fast food or fast casual restaurants.
"If you asked me, 'Would you rather go to Nando's or the hospital to eat?' I'd go to the hospital," Shafiq said.
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Additionally, eating at a hospital is "one of the best ways to support the NHS," Shafiq said, referring to the United Kingdom's National Health Service.
"The money I spend will go back to the NHS, and we should all come together to make the place look busy," he said.
In the United Kingdom, the NHS funds health-care costs, noted Shafiq, "but we can spend money in other places to help fund the NHS and help them with their bottom line."
Shafiq said he has traveled throughout the United Kingdom and stopped at various hospital cafeterias.
The best meal he's had, he told the agency, was at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in central London. His favorite meal is chips, beans and cheese.
"The Great Ormond Street Hospital fish and chips – it's well worth a visit to the hospital for that food, really. It's the best in the country," he said.
Shafiq said that at most hospitals, the fish and chips meal is "epic."
"It's also just a meal that I know I'm very familiar with, and I like to have it. I'm one of those people where I'm set in my ways," he said. "If I like something, I'll keep doing it."
Shafiq said he has frequented his local hospital for meals so often that staffers have taken notice, and one of his videos documenting his most unusual dining locale went viral on social media.
"I've given the game away a bit now. All the doctors and nurses have started to look at me," he told SWNS.
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"I used to sometimes go twice in one day and then have to go home in between and get changed so they wouldn't recognize me. But I think I've grassed myself up now."
