Have you ever left a restaurant without paying and why?

Yes, just before Christmas. Me and my boyfriend went out for a meal for his birthday, but we had also been to his Grandad's funural that same morning, so we had started drinking very early (about 11am) at the wake. We were absolutely bobbins by 5pm and after a bottle of wine with the meal we were completely hammered. I don't know how we got away with not paying but we did. It wasn't intentional I think we both assumed the one had sorted the bill out, but we just staggered out and left it unpaid. We didn't realise until the next morning.

I was waiting at the till with my friend and the person before us had just left their money with the bill...the cashier came along, assumed it was ours - we ran before she realised her mistake - and pocketed £7 change!!

Only once, when the food I was served was so disgusting I couldn't actually eat it.

One time I was at a restaurant downtown and I must have had my head in my a*s. I accidentally left without paying.

Later, remembering I did not leave a tip, I thought about it further. I thought, I do not even remember paying for the meal.

A friend of mine worked as a waitress there. I was so embarrassed. I ran back and paid for the meal and left a very generous tip. I was lucky I did not get into any trouble for it.


+5

No. Mainly because that's stealing. But also because it's incredibly rude. I would never do that.

Only once!
It was a restuarant on the Greek Island of Poros!
I was given a ticket that allowed us a 50% discount on th meal!
The food was disgusting and the service was almost non-exsitent.
I just left the discount voucher and left!

take me out for dinner and we will try it, just dont be to full as it will slow us down

Nope , never and wont do that also :)

No, but I have ran after getting ice cream from an Ice cream truck without paying...that was fun!

yeah ..I am a server

Please don't eat or drink and then run away from the restaurant without paying.

In most places, the bill has to be paid by the servers who were in charge of the area of the restaurant where you were sitting.

It may be funny. but its stealing from the waiter - not the restaurant.

It ruins the day of the service staff who work hard all day and end up having to pay for someone who wanted a thrill.

Nope, ive always had money to pay.

yea but that was like when i was like 16 and i thought of the idea but then my friends really took it seriouse so we ended up doing it the bill was like 50 dollars and after the waiter gave us the billand he left we walked out like nothin happend then we ended up running like 6 blocks lol

If there had been no easy way to track me down, I would have left probably. I should do that often, going to busy large restaurants on busy days and then pretending to go to the restroom and leaving - - It would be too easy to do to have huge expensive meals for free.

I was thinking of ways to get out of there without paying : if you have something to leave at the table, something you don't need, you can leave it there, so they think you will be back. Anything is good, any old book or magazine, leave it there and then you leave quickly. They see you left something and think you will be back.

If you are a clever one you can leave a note somewhere on the table where it will be found (but not right away, maybe under your magazine - - explaining why you did that exactly). It was for a good cause. They would never investigate such a small theft, I'm sure they would call the cops and make a big deal for a 20-30$ meal that was not paid, right.

You better do this when you are by yourself though, not with a spouse, friends or family or else it's easier to track you down and you can't really get out of there quickly enough, you can be embarrassed, etc. You go by yourself and order expensive food and drinks then you can manage to get out of there pretty easily.

Park your car far from the door in the parking lot and if they 'chase' you, which I think is pretty unlikely just pretend you forgot your wallet in your car, oh, there it is - - I doubt this would happen, it would take a few minutes for someone to realize things are not right at a large busy place.

I have a lot of ways to steal, even from grocery stores, I was trying all sorts of schemes to steal from there. I had 10-12 different schemes to steal. They don't really know or care. Once I had a box of candy that was worth 12$ I believe. I just took a black magic marker, crossed the 12$ and the upc code on the box and wrote on it : 2$. No problem, it went right through. The girl thought it was on sale and the manager had written that. If there had been a problem I would have said I found the box like that (of course I was careful not to have magic marker ink on my fingers !) I know the manager there did that sometimes. I had a few schemes, used them for years and I would steal about 5$ each time I'd go to the grocery store, never got caught and if something happened I would just say, oh it was a mistake - - no problem. They wouldn't cause a scene for 2-3$, especially if it looks like a genuine accident, no cops, it's not like you try to sneak expensive steak underneath your sweater, you do it using ways they can't detect even with cameras, making sure they can't see you easily eating handful of expensive nuts in the store without paying for example, then you leave the empty container in a trash can.

Once, when we waited so long for the food to arrive we walked without paying for the food we ordered but were still to get.

yes, very bad food and service. After, I complained, the Manager offered me to chose another meal and cancelled all charges.

yes, because someone paid for me.

also, i knew the owner or someone who worked there, who paid for it.

Once around 1998 I had lunch at a restaurant and the food was really lousy. I usually am not fussy at all but it was quite disgusting food. I tried to pay for it at first but the waitress was nowhere to be found so after a couple of minutes I just decided to leave. People were waiting for me too so I had to leave, I couldn't wait so I just got up and left. Nobody was really paying attention so it was easy, especially since it was a busy place.

Today I ate at a restaurant for brunch and I could have left without paying easily as well. The waiter left the bill and then I was trying to pay it but I couldn't find him and the girl at the register only accepted credit cards, I wanted to pay cash, she said I had to pay the waiter directly but I couldn't find him for a few minutes at least (this was a large restaurant)

The only reason I didn't leave without paying this time was that my sister had made the reservation at the restaurant (a large busy one and I thought maybe it would be embarrassing if my sister got a phone call about someone from our group not paying, the person who had the Western omelette ... I was the only one who ordered that dish !)
It was pretty good but I thought about leaving without paying because I was having a hard time finding the waiter to pay for it. ;-)

No, but sometimes I pay and then run away before eating.

Nope!

yes. I was with a group of women and got up and went outside to wait for them, and one of them said "someone forgot to pay!" then it dawned on me, that it was me. I was so used to my husband picking up the check that I forgot! LOL... I went back and paid and apologized.