FERGUS – A local restaurant has blasted a group of non-paying customers on social media after a seemingly “calculated” dine-and-dash over the weekend.
The Goofie Newfie Pub & Grill recently posted to its Facebook page asking for the identities of a group of men so they could come settle up their almost $300 bill they allegedly skipped out on after “belittling their amazing serve to the point of tears.”
Restaurant owner Rebecca O’Brien said in a phone call she couldn’t even recall the last time the restaurant had a dine-and-dash.
“This is just not something that normally happens in Fergus, it’s not something we normally deal with,” O’Brien said.
She explained a group of five men came into the restaurant on Sunday and seemingly had a good experience, ordering lots of appetizers, food and drinks.
When it came time to pay the bill, they began to argue and make a scene over a round of beverages despite there being evidence at the bar that the bill was accurate.
“They were fine, like just normal everyday customers having a nice experience and then at the end they created this crazy scene, like so much everybody on the patio was part of the scene,” O’Brien said.
The group asked to pay for one round of drinks in cash and when the server came back to the patio with change, the group was gone having skipped out on the rest of the bill approaching $300.
“It just seemed calculated, the way that they caused the scene at the end then they did pay for that round that was what started the debate,” O’Brien said.
There’s no single reason why O’Brien decided to go public about the dine-and-dash in a Monday social media post, which she said she made after a night of little sleep thinking about the incident.
One, she hoped the group would come back and pay on the off chance it was an honest mistake but doubts that was the case based on their behaviour.
“They were so rude and miserable to my staff, I wanted people to know that these aren’t nice people,” O’Brien said.
She also wanted the post to serve as a warning to other restaurants to keep an eye out for this group of people in case they try something similar elsewhere.
So far, no one has been able to identify the group — O’Brien figured they aren’t local to the area — but was blown away with an outpouring of support the restaurant has received since going public with the recent incident.
After not having a dine-and-dash in recent memory, in the aftermath of that post O’Brien said it happened again. On Tuesday two men left without paying for two pitchers of beer when they claimed to be going out for a cigarette, leaving a phone and wallet at the table but came back and got it before leaving.
“The restaurant business works really hard and our margins are really small, so to take a $300 hit on people who you know, came and took up a prime table on a prime day ate lots of food and then didn’t pay their bill, pretty shitty,” O’Brien said.
