Posted on 11/14/2024 5:30:30 PM PST by nickcarraway
Most people (hopefully) wouldn't steal from a store or a home, so why do diners think it's fine to come home with a pilfered fork, glass, toilet paper, or shaker?
Restaurant customers are a notoriously thieving bunch. If it’s not nailed down, someone will try to take it and I’m not just talking about the patience they sometimes snatch from those who serve them. Their fingers are stickier than a laminated breakfast menu at a Waffle House.
A recent viral TikTok video of a woman proudly displaying all of the things she had lifted from restaurants amassed over four million views before it was wisely deleted. She had stolen enough plates and silverware to host a state dinner at the White House and I believe she is the sole reason I can never find a soup spoon when I’m at work. Maybe some customers see it as a challenge to walk out with a molcajete after ordering chips and guacamole, but it’s nothing more than brazen robbery.
Woman Who Threw a Burrito Bowl at Chipotle Staffer Was Just Sentenced to Working at a Fast Food Restaurant From ramekins to salt and pepper shakers to steak knives to chopstick rests, customers feel like it’s their right to take what they want from a restaurant. The price of an appetizer and entree does not include anything other than the food on the plate. The food goes home with the customer either in their belly or in their to-go box and everything else stays at the restaurant.
It's a condiment, not a keepsake
When I worked at a well-known hotel chain, we had individual servings of 100% pure maple syrup. They came in adorable little jars emblazoned with the hotel’s logo and an image of the Brooklyn Bridge. The jars rested at the end of the buffet line so guests could help themselves to one after having a waffle made for them. Those jars sold out like hotcakes, except they weren’t actually for sale. Throughout the shift, they had to be continuously restocked to make up for all of the jars that ended up in purses and bags as souvenirs from Brooklyn. Eventually, the syrup bottles became something we gave out as needed. Once, a woman asked me for another jar of syrup. I looked at the unopened jar sitting in front of her and said, “When you finish that one, I’d be happy to bring you another.” Hey, I owned stock in that hotel chain and food costs really mattered to me.
Want Bread? Extra Lemon Wedges? Drink Refills? You Should Pay for Them
People often justify their theft saying it’s free advertising for the restaurant. Is it though? Taking a cactus-shaped Margarita glass that doesn’t even have the restaurant’s name on it and then storing that glass inside a cabinet at one’s home where no one except the person who stole it will ever see it, isn’t really a great advertising strategy. It’s just shoplifting. Unless the menu says “comes in a keepsake glass,” it’s pretty assured that the glass should not go inside a bag when the server isn’t looking.
If a diner feels they simply must have the ceramic creamer that came with their coffee or the wooden mallet that came with the crab, they might consider buying those at the same place the restaurant did. It’s called a restaurant supply store and they sell all the things customers want to steal from restaurants. They’re usually much more affordable than buying them at Williams-Sonoma, but admittedly not as cheap as stealing them.
Tea and TP aren't free
Customers take plenty of other things from restaurants too. Toilet paper is a hot commodity. If there are a few extra rolls of it on a shelf over the sink in the bathroom, those aren’t the same thing as the complimentary mints at the host stand. They aren’t there for the taking. Splenda and Sugar in the Raw packets are not on the table to restock a pocketbook. “All-you-can-eat” doesn’t mean it’s okay to cram a baggie full of rolls for the road.
Ordering one glass of iced tea that has unlimited refills and then sharing that glass of tea is also stealing. The same goes for couples who ask for one cup of coffee after dinner and leave the cup in front of one of them even though they both take turns drinking out of it. The server knows what’s happening and they don’t like it. It’s pure thievery and customers like that may as well throw the sugar caddy into their backpack while they’re at it.
Don't steal the server's pen
The one thing that’s okay to take from a restaurant is a pen, but only if it has the name of the restaurant on it. That’s an indication that it was provided by the establishment for the server to use. Any other pen was probably paid for by the server and anyone who tries to take it deserves to be chased down until it’s retrieved.
It costs a lot to go out to eat in a restaurant these days and it’s getting more expensive all the time. Inflation is a big part of it, but any time a customer steals something from the restaurant, it means prices can go up even higher. Stop stealing from restaurants. I’m not an economist or anything, but I feel like our country could avoid a possible recession if customers would only stop taking every copper mug their Moscow Mule came in.
I think the takeaway is if you have theft, it could easily be internal.
Maybe the real theft is restaurants paying su pch a low wage to employees.
All this does is the owner shifting blame and hate off themselves, onto customers.
They do?
Honestly some times I think I live in an entirely different world.
The only things I have ever taken is left over food and maybe jelly or other condiment packets if I am taking something that would require such. But usually not even that unless we are on the road.
People are so strange.
Back around 2002, my wife put her restaurant leftovers in a take-home box and unthinkingly put the fork into the box. I teased her about that for years, using that fork at her place setting and so on. I think she finally threw it away.
I paid for a pizza, I deserved to take the brick oven home!
Canadians?
Argument was ok, although factoring in the employee theft as another post did, makes sense. But when he got to requesting refills, that’s nuts. Usually $3 + for a fountain drink, no doubt a lot of people don’t take the refill factored into the price. Extra lemon wedge? Lots of people skip the first one and when you’re out, you’re out.
“Lobster tank?”
Fuzz, now you’re talking!
Cmon!
It never occurred to me to take something from a restaurant. They whole point is going there,, have them bring out the meal, and then take everything away so we don’t have to do anything.
I tried to steal the Mongolian BBQ grill but it didn’t fit in my girlfriend’s purse....
95% of businesses encounter employee theft?
That’s hard to believe. I’ll accept 80% and that is a horrible percentage.
Yes, the college students all forget to bring silverware and things with them. At the end of the year they leave that and so much more in their rooms. There was a cleaner at a university in Boston who always volunteered for overtime at the end of the school year. The kids left radios, hair dryers, televisions, other things you can’t imagine. He cleaned up. Also, at year’s end people in apartments leave 1 and 2 year old furniture at the curb. It’s too expensive to ship home.
Many years ago, when our government arranged to remove the Shah of Iran, and again after 9/11 many students left their apartments and cars to return immediately to their home country.
“Does the person you’re talking about’s name rhyme with fillary mintton”
LOL! No. Those trash never showed up there that I can recall.
LOL 😆
Dieb.
Does taking sugar packets count? ... I usually bring my Sriracha.... because I love it and don’t trust anyone to have it.
My cousin stole many beer pitchers, a table and 4 chairs from a tavern. He even stole a Christmas tree from a Chinese Restaurant. He got got trying to take a pinball machine another time
They used to give you matchbooks as souvenirs; but nobody uses them anymore. I still have one from a Chinese place in Chicago from when my wife and I were dating.
Whew! Glad to hear that's OK. I took one from a cool little bar & grille (biker bar) when I was young and travelling. First, I handed the owner a generous tip, and she smiled and thanked me. Then, one of the regulars saw me eye the pen, and he said, 'Quick, take it,' handed it to me, and I slipped it into my bag. I kept that souvenir for years. I'm sure my tip more than covered it.
Same here. I still have some old souvenir matchbooks, one from Chicago. Sometimes, the little things in life make us happy.
Just a symptom of a failed generation, and the failure of their parents. Maybe there is a valid reason for abortion!
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