American small business owners fight to survive crippling dine-and-dash crime sprees
A string of recent crimes targeting small businesses throughout the country have industry experts on high-alert as owners warn the incidents could result in rising prices.
Instances of dining-and-dashing – when an individual orders a meal at a restaurant and leaves without paying – have become more high-profile in recent months, with thieves becoming more brazen as they target small businesses across the United States.
Last month, a local California sushi restaurant chain became an unwilling target for a serial dine-and-dasher when a man stole approximately $1,000 worth of meals from multiple locations.
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"Every little thing has a positive or negative effect on small businesses, so this definitely has an impact," Randy Musterer, founder and CEO of Sushi Confidential, told Fox News Digital.
Musterer and his staff were on the lookout for a man who had reportedly walked out on the bill at two separate Sushi Confidential locations over the course of numerous visits. When the man returned to the restaurant’s flagship location in Campbell, workers immediately recognized him as the alleged thief.
"I got a phone call from one of our managers saying, ‘Oh my gosh, the guy who has been dining and dashing in our Campbell location, he's on the patio right now’," Musterer said.
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Musterer and his team quickly devised a plan to confirm if the man intended on stealing his meal, ultimately handing him his check as his food was dropped off and waiting for him to immediately pay. When the man got up to use the bathroom, they knew they had the dasher.
"The minute he got up, I knew something was going to go down," Musterer said. "Then I got a text message from the manager saying he ran out the front door."
Musterer called the police and, after a brief search, the suspect was arrested for allegedly committing two thefts totaling approximately $140, according to the Campbell Police Department.
The suspect is charged with three counts of defrauding an innkeeper and is scheduled to be arraigned next month, the Santa Clara District Attorney's Office confirmed to Fox News Digital.
"No one likes to be taken advantage of," Musterer said. "Whether it's your money or someone else's money, when you just see something like this happen you want to grab the bull by the horns and help solve the problem yourself."
Officials say the act of stealing from small businesses is not a victimless crime, and can have real-life repercussions for local business owners and their staff.
"Dine-and-dash incidents create additional financial strains on restaurants that are already facing economic challenges," Sam Toia, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, told Fox News Digital. "I always say that before the pandemic, the restaurant industry used to be an industry of nickels and dimes. Post-pandemic, it's turned into a business of pennies and nickels, and these dine-and-dash incidents are creating additional financial strains."
Incidents involving dining-and-dashing have drawn widespread attention as offenders are repeatedly stealing from the same location or posting about their crimes online.
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A few weeks after Musterer’s dine-and-dash incident, another group of thieves made headlines for walking out on the bill at a Chicago restaurant.
Three women visiting the city’s Soul Vibez restaurant racked up a tab of over $200, ordering alfredo, chicken wings and multiple drinks while celebrating a birthday, Fox 32 first reported.
After finishing their meal, the trio waited for their server to leave before ducking out of the restaurant, but not before reportedly posting a photo of their dinner on social media, tagging the restaurant and thanking them for the free food.
Chicago police are investigating the incident and a police report has been filed, according to Fox 32.
Soul Vibez and the Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Instances involving restaurant visitors walking out on their bills have been on the rise since the pandemic, according to Toia. Those within the restaurant industry insist the uptick in dine-and-dash offenses can force businesses to offset the losses onto consumers, raising prices for those who do pay their tabs.
"It doesn't just hurt the restaurant owner, it also hurts the team members," Toia said. "It hurts waitstaff, it hurts bus boys, it hurts bartenders. People come into restaurants for the food, but they come back because of the service. So if you don't have happy waitstaff [because of] these dine-and-dash incidents, you make everyone unhappy and other customers are gonna feel it."
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Toia is asking communities to come together to protect small businesses and local workers while looking to the government to provide protection for owners who may not have the same amount of financial resources as more prominent chains.
"Larger chains may be able to absorb some losses, [but] small and independent restaurants often don't have the financial cushion to recover from the frequent theft," Toia told Fox News Digital. "A single bad month could put an independent restaurant out of business, shutting them down for good."
As a restaurant owner, Musterer insists he is used to experiencing the downfalls of running a business, but the most heartbreaking part was watching how the crimes impacted his employees.
"Unfortunately, as a small business owner, you’ve got to take your punches," Musterer told Fox News Digital. "All these little things that happen are the cost of doing business, but when a server feels that, they're not used to ‘running their own small business’ and having those challenges. So it definitely hurts them quite a bit."