You’re Not Sticking It to a Chain When You Dine-and-Dash

There really is no lower low than going into a restaurant with no intention of paying for the food. Stiffing a server on the tip is one thing, but skipping out on the entire check is a completely different beast. 

A “dine-and-dash” is when a customer sees a chance to leave without paying, and then seizes the opportunity. They might think it’s a way to stick it to the man and that a megacorporation with hundreds of restaurants that charge $5 for a fountain soda can afford to absorb the loss of a couple of hamburgers. Yes, they probably can afford it, but that doesn’t make it OK. 

And what about small mom-and-pop restaurants? They’re probably barely scraping by as it is and losing $100 worth of product can be a big hit. Making the server pay for it is the most common outcome. It’s not fair and it’s certainly not legal, but the servers are the ones who can afford it the least.

It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, every restaurant deals with dine-and-dashers in their own way. The absolute worst of those is when they make the server responsible. There was probably some fine print in the stack of papers the new server signed when they started their new job that allows the restaurant to make them pay for a walkout. A lot of restaurants consider a customer not paying the check the fault of the server for not being attentive enough. 

Servers are not babysitters and they can’t watch every table for every second. If a customer’s objective is to walk out on a check, they will find a way. Some restaurants will give the server the opportunity to either pay for it themselves, accept a write-up, or get fired. I once worked at a place where a server was expected to pay for a walkout. The rest of us all chipped in to help them cover the cost because we knew it could’ve happened to any of us just as easily. 

Some restaurants will comp the check, but tell the server if it happens again, they will be responsible. This is because there are some less than scrupulous servers out there who might say a customer didn’t pay when they did and the server pocketed the cash. Of course there are plenty of restaurants that will comp the check and move on, but there aren’t enough of them.

Making the server pay puts them in a very difficult situation. Do they just pay it or do they chase after the thieves and risk their personal safety? There was a story in the news not too long ago about a server who did exactly that and was subsequently hit by the perpetrators’ car in the parking lot. No job is worth putting your life in danger, but if you make $120 in tips and have to give most of it back to the restaurant because someone walked out, it’s understandable why a server would make that decision.

In this day of social media, restaurants have found a new way to fight back, and it’s my personal favorite way to handle the people who walk out on a check. Using security footage, they can find the video of the unprincipled reprobates darting out of their financial responsibility. Posting it on their social media channels and letting the Internet do what it does is very satisfying. Within days, the scoundrels are very often caught and prosecuted. At the very least, they go viral and are shamed into oblivion. Well, it’s obvious these people don’t have any shame so it might not even matter to them, but it’s still wonderful.

However it’s handled, the server should never have to pay out of their own pocket. I’m not a tax accountant or anything, but I would think a loss like that would fall under the cost of doing business. It’s no different than when a glass or plate gets broken. And by the way, that’s something else too many restaurants make servers pay for. That, too, is illegal. Waiting tables comes with a lot of responsibility, but paying for someone’s dishonesty should never be one of them.