Pushed-to-the-limit NYC restaurateurs are faced with another battle in the fight for their financial lives — a growing scourge of dine-and-dash incidents.
asserted
restaurateurs → push → incidents
From deluded influencers to old-school scofflaws, this latest affront is just one more headache for inflation-embattled businesses to handle — and seemingly on their own, too, in an era where law enforcement, plates heaped high with meatier crimes, tend to view the Class A misdemeanor as small potatoes.
asserted
enforcement → embattle → potatoes
Some fed-up proprietors aren’t taking the insult lying down — instead flocking to social media to name and shame the culprits, often with the help of their followers.
asserted
proprietors → feed → followers
Throwing the perps into Instagram jail, it turns out, is a much quicker way to justice than ratting out tab-sentee customers to the cops.
asserted
it → throw → cops
Britney Cariño, owner of Talavera Cantina in The Bronx’s trendy Mott Haven neighborhood, rushed to the restaurant’s social accounts last May, after a table of customers walked out on their $112 tab.
uncertain
table → rush → tab
The alleged terrible trio sauntered into the Mexican cocktail bar on Cinco de Mayo — the busiest day of the month, Cariño said.
asserted
Cariño → saunter → month
They ordered tacos, chips and guacamole and four frozen margaritas.
asserted
They → order → tacos
After enjoying themselves, they apparently slipped out the door without paying the bill — during a power outage that had torpedoed the POS system tracking their checks.
asserted
that → enjoy → checks
While reviewing payments processed offline, Cariño spotted the outstanding balance and caught the group red-handed on security footage.
asserted
Cariño → review → footage
“One of the women, she takes the check tray and she actually puts it under her purse,” the second-generation business owner told The Post.
asserted
owner → take → Post
“They look around again and then that’s when they leave.”
asserted
they → look → ?
Appalled over the fryjacking — her first in three years running Talavera — Cariño said she aired the diners’ dirty laundry on Instagram with a screen grab of the footage, letting them know that if they paid up, everything would be fine.
asserted
everything → run → footage
“My first instinct wasn’t to call the police because honestly, sometimes there’s nothing that police can do,” she said.
asserted
she → call → that
To her surprise and delight, one of the perps’ older brothers quickly came in and covered the tab.
asserted
one → come → tab
“Dine-and-dashes have always existed, but the fact that now we can utilize social media … you kind of bring back shame,” she declared.
John Truong of Long Island City Vietnamese restaurant Chef Papa is another New Yorker who hit back, after being left high-and-dry by a wannabe foodfluencer, who promised coverage in exchange for $200 worth of food and drinks.
asserted
who → exist → food
Fahmida Sultana, who Truong said left his staff only $6 as a tip before sauntering out the door, welched on the supposed deal — leaving him with little recourse but to air his frustrations in Instagram.
“We trusted this person to come in to record a video and I feel like she scammed us,” Truong lamented in the clip, posted last November.
asserted
Truong → say → clip
“She changed her username or deleted her account,” said one viewer, while another wrote, “Time to call out all the so-called influencers.
asserted
another → change → influencers
It was only after his video that she finally responded — with a scathing and since-deleted review.
asserted
she → respond → review
Truong’s $200 is nothing, however, compared to NYC’s most famous recent eat-and-run case — that of dine-and-dash diva Pei “Lu” Chung, who was arrested seven times after stiffing Michelin-starred restaurants, including Peter Luger and Francie, out of hundreds of dollars.
asserted
who → compare → dollars
The phenomenon has rippled beyond city limits, with restaurants around the tri-state area tackling the problem on their own.
asserted
restaurants → ripple → own
Erin ONeill’s Pub and Grill in Poughkeepsie tried the same tack recently — posting footage of a female customer sneakily removing her card from the check presenter, before walking off with both her plastic and the booklet.
asserted
customer → try → plastic
“Anyone recognize our Dine & Dashers?” they inquired in the caption, later noting in an update their thanks for the help in identifying the culprits.
asserted
they → recognize → culprits
Then there are the Gotham grub spots that don’t even use social media — but instead lean on a good, old-fashioned Wall of Shame.
asserted
that → be → Shame
UMI Hotpot Sushi & Seafood Buffet in The Bronx got so tired of diners prancing out without paying, that it began slapping up photos and unpaid receipts.
asserted
it → get → photos
“Stealing food without paying,” reads one of the impromptu mugshots’ captions, evoking a Chinatown store’s “pickpocketer” poster: dine-and-dash edition.
asserted
one → steal → poster
Whether intentional or the result of a misunderstanding, restaurant owners certainly have the right to call the cops — theft of service is technically punishable in NYC by up to a year in jail.
asserted
theft → call → jail
But a $100 restaurant loss, experts say, tends to get buried in a system overwhelmed by serious crime.
asserted
experts → say → crime
Christopher Herrman, an associate professor in the Department of Law & Police Science at CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice (NYC), told The Post that when weighing their options, victimized restaurants have to make a “practical cost-benefit calculation.”
asserted
restaurants → tell → calculation
“If the unpaid check is $75 or $150, a manager may have to decide whether it is worth stopping restaurant operations, calling police, waiting for officers, reviewing video, providing statements and potentially having employees participate later in the criminal-justice process,” he said.
uncertain
he → have → process
Many opt out.
asserted
Many → opt → ?
And restaurateurs’ reluctance to report tab-stainers means the extent to which the problem has exploded isn’t readily showing up in official crime stats, leaving much of the evidence anecdotal, Herrman explained.
asserted
Herrman → report → evidence
When asked for dine-and-dash arrest totals over the past five years, an NYPD spokesperson told The Post that the Department doesn’t track this data to that “level of specificity.”
asserted
Department → ask → specificity
As hospitality lawyer Andreas Koutsoudakis put it to The Post, “Walking out on a $300 check is the same class of crime as jumping a turnstile” — a relatively minor offense.
asserted
Walking → put → turnstile
“On paper, it carries up to a year, but in practice it’s nothing,” Koutsoudakis explained.
asserted
Koutsoudakis → carry → practice
But even if the wheels of justice won’t turn for small businesses in peril, that doesn’t change the fact that seemingly negligible eat-and-run can be a bitter bill to swallow.
“On a five-table business, that’s going to hurt .. plus the 20 percent lost tips to the server,” said Koutsoudakis, who used to run a restaurant in Tribeca.
asserted
who → turn → Tribeca
For instance, with independent restaurants typically clocking a pre-tax profit margin of 5%, they’d need around $2,000 in sales to generate a $112 pre-tax profit — equivalent to Talavera’s skipped check.
asserted
they → clock → check
The best course of action for victimized vittle vendors, per Herrman, is to retain surveillance footage, preserve the receipt, record employee testimony, and make a “timely police report.”
asserted
course → victimize → report
He also stressed communicating with other businesses when there’s evidence of a repeat offender.
asserted
He → stress → offender
“When multiple restaurants report essentially the same conduct by the same individual, investigators potentially have a pattern rather than a single isolated event,” Herrman said.
asserted
Herrman → report → pattern
“
Plus, it lets “the public know this is not the community you’re going to be doing this to,” said Koutsoudakis.
asserted
Koutsoudakis → let → this
The Aporia
