Eat & run
Food-loving scammers are hitting up New York restaurants with the old ‘dine and dash’
Several times a month, Bolivar Arias, a dining-room manager at Havana Central in Times Square, nips a “dine and dash” in the bud.Though one might think it’s something only a drunken frat boy might pull, there is no shortage, it seems, of New Yorkers who love feasting on lobster and steak, but don’t much like paying the bill afterward.
“It happens much more than people realize,” says Arias, and “usually, they’ve planned their move before they step foot into the restaurant.” Typically, the “dashers” will head to the bathroom around check time, he says, leaving only one diner at the table, poised to bolt. “One person went so far as to change shirts in the bathroom so we wouldn’t recognize him on his way out.”
“The bill is usually high - a few hundred dollars - but others will try it for just a beer and a sandwich,” he says. “Some people just want to beat the system.”
It’s happened so many times at the Cuban restaurant that staffers now alert Arias at even the slightest suspicion. “I’m built like a wrestler, and I go to the table and give the last person sitting there a look,” he says. more…
