Asking restaurant employees, not people who have hunches. The fact you pay after the meal seems to make it a very easy to accomplish. Second question, Do you think restaurants will soon implement pay before you eat/drink standards?

44 comments

  1. If one wanted to do such a thing, their odds would be better in Europe since the servers pay less attention

  3. It is and has always been a thing anywhere you have somewhere you can pay after eating. It’s not that common, so no, I don’t think restaurants will make you pay before eating if they haven’t before now.

  5. Sure it might happen, but there are definitely a lot of people who are watching out for this. Also there are just so many fast casual restaurants now. So you actually pay for your food first, they give you a number and then someone might bring out your food or you go back and pick it up.

  6. Maybe try /r/KitchenConfidential or /r/AskCulinary if you want restaurant employee/owner answers to this question…but…I don’t think this is a major issue and if it has been at a restaurant they make changes. People here tend to be honest.

  7. It happens but it is exceedingly rare.

    Like many many zeros after a decimal of a percentage of meals.

  8. Another benefit of the tipping culture. Wait staff pay attention to their tables. I had one couple run out on me. I chased the guy three blocks and got his tag as he was getting in his car. He was about sixteen and sheepishly went back to pay. And he gave me a $20 tip for being such an asshat and not telling his folks.

  11. > Do you think restaurants will soon implement pay before you eat/drink standards?

    No, that seems highly unlikely.

  12. It happens but as others have said, it’s not super common.

    I worked as a server for a big chain restaurant for about 5 months and I’d say it probably happened a total of 5-10 times for the *whole* restaurant during the time I was there.
    Thankfully it didn’t happen to me but the servers who had worked there for years all had their “walk out” experience.
    This poor server who started at the same time as me had 2 walk outs in the short amount of time he was there.

    If you had a “hunch” that someone might walk out, you would tell the manager and they would keep an eye out on the table – go introduce themselves, ask questions, even take food out and just stay in that vicinity to try and dissuade them, if that was their intention. Don’t know if it actually worked.

    Again, it wasn’t much of an issue since we served hundreds of people daily and again it was only a small fraction of customers who actually walked out without paying.

  13. It happens because occasionally I’ll hear about it on the news. I think it’s very rare though. A friend of mine worked in restaurants for many years and he doesn’t recall it ever happening when he was working.

  15. Never saw it happen where I worked. We did have one customer who’s checks bounced a couple times and it was our job to try and collect from her lol. But never saw dine and dash.

  16. It happens once in a while. Maybe every few months at the places I’ve worked. People don’t do it because they aren’t worried about spending money on a meal and just realize it’s a shitty thing to do.

  19. Varies based on area. The more rural the less likely (social trust matters more in more rural areas).

  20. I worked at a restaurant for about 10 months my last year of college. We had two groups in that time that tried. One group walked right by a group of police officers by our entrance who forced them to go back inside and pay. Generally restaurant workers can tell which groups are likely to dine and dash and set up measures to stop them from leaving the building.

  21. I worked in bars and restaurants for maybe 10 years.

    I don’t think I ever had someone do that.

    I know it has happened but here in Massachusetts I haven’t experienced it.

  22. It happens occasionally. It is theft and will be prosecuted as such. I knew a kid in high school who got arrested for dining and dashing from the local Denny’s. He barely made it out of the parking lot by the time he got pulled over

  23. It’s pretty rare, although of course it does happen. I worked for my cousin’s seafood restaurant for a couple of summers and then was a waiter another summer at an IHOP in a not so great area (IHOP is low end dining). I rarely had dine and dash. I think at IHOP maybe once and it wasn’t my table. Same at the seafood restaurant – maybe 1 time in the 2 summers that I was there. Of course I wasn’t working full-time so I didn’t hear everything.

  24. I have visited a dozen or so countries and I’ve never had to pre-pay for sit-down service at a restaurant. You always pay after you finish ordering and eating.

    There’s nothing about the way we pay that makes dine-and-dash not impossible in say…France or Italy.

  25. It happened to me a few times. It didn’t really happen all that often though, so I don’t really think restaurants are eager to change the system.

  26. I saw it happen once and the look on the waiter’s face was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen. I gave him extra on the tip

  27. Very uncommon. You’d be a blatant thief, and would be stealing from many people who work hard for little–waiters, busboys, cooks.

    All stealing is wrong, but this sort of stealing is viewed as reprehensible. You would be viewed as very ‘low’ if you did that–not just by the restaurant but by all the customers.

    Also in the US, waiters are usually (not always) very attentive compared to many places I’ve eaten elsewhere. When I lived in the UK, in many restaurants I went to, it would have been very easy to have walked out without paying; no one noticed or cared about what I was doing.

  30. I’m sure it happens but it’s not a frequent complaint of anyone I know who works in restaurants.

    It’s not classy behavior. People wouldn’t look well on you for doing it, mostly because that server got paid $3/hr to work for you when you stiff them a tip. People would have the impression you’re scummy and immature.

  31. >Asking restaurant employees

    There could be a nice followup to this question regarding how many Americans have worked food service. I think it’s uncommon that someone has never worked food service. I’d say 65% of people have worked food service.

  32. It happened to me in Maryland twice in the early 2000’s. Teenagers. I had to cover it each time. Sucked. No one thinks it’s cute or charming, that’s for sure. I don’t think it’s super common though.

  33. It’s not common, but it happens. Was at one of those group hibachi places. It was my family and two other guys at the table. The other guys each paid with a gift card. They got tired of waiting for the receipts and left.

    The waitress came back and told my father his gift cards declined. He didn’t pay with a gift card, the other guys did, and now they are gone.

  35. I know you’re not asking me, but one time I signed the credit card slip and accidentally put it in my purse and left the blank customer copy. The server ran out and stopped me as I was getting into my car. I was totally embarrassed, but she wanted to make sure I signed.

  36. It’s a mixed bag. It happens, but it’s fairly uncommon. Not to mention a lot of the people who do it are habitual offenders and with the nature of the restaurant industry it’s likely that someone who is on shift has seen you do it at that restaurant or a different restaurant is pretty high. In which case they might ask you to pay upfront or might outright refuse to serve you.

  37. Dining and dashing is not more a problem now than it was 100 years ago and we have never really had those rules

  38. Not really. It happens.

    I’ve done this once. Ever. I was at a restaurant and asked for the check. They didn’t bring it. 15 minutes later I asked again. They didn’t bring it.

    No biggie. Went back to reading my kindle since I wasn’t in a rush. After 40 minutes I asked again. Nothing.

    After an hour I left. I didn’t dash. I didn’t run. I just left. I tried to pay repeatedly. They wouldn’t let me. So I left. That’s their fucking problem.

  39. Yes. I have a con artist for an uncle lol. One time we went out to eat and he told me to go out to his car because he would get the bill. So I’m sitting in his car and this MFer comes running full speed through the parking lot, jumps in the driver seat, peels tf out and took off down the road. I would have paid the bill myself if I had known he was going to do that.

  40. I did a couple of months ago…. But by accident. My friend thought I was going to pay, I thought she had already paid. She texted me a few hours later saying thanks for paying for dinner, even tho it was her turn to pay. Then we realized what we did. She went back to the restaurant and paid.

  41. I never understood why people would spend 10 chewing my ear off with fake complaints to get a free. I’d much rather they just get up and leave without paying.

  42. I don’t hear about it often, but I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone who’s worked in that sector for at least a few years can recall instances where it happened. I worked in a restaurant decades ago for about a year and I know of one time when it did happen. A guy, dining alone, simply walked out after eating his small meal. I wonder how long it took him to realize that he was missing his wallet–he had left it in the booth and his ID was inside.

  44. On a similar note, in smaller town USA you can still pump gas into your car without first pre-paying or inserting a credit card into the pump. You could technically just drive off without paying, aka a gas and go. But more populated areas just make you pre-pay. But we aren’t a crime free utopia. If something can be stolen, people will do it

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