It started like any other day at Michael’s Bar & Grill on Manchester Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri, a local business known more for its quality service for 46 years.
On Oct. 14, a man then came in and ordered a hamburger with a couple of side dishes, and even paid his tab with a $1000 bill before leaving. The only issue is that no such bill exists. Recalling the dine-and-dash incident, Kristina Moriarty of Michael’s Bar and Grill said that the man asked the server at the end of his meal if she could give him change for a $100 bill, as his total had come to $40. But right when the server went to retrieve the change, the man dropped a counterfeit $1,000 bill that looked almost like a real $100 bill and drove off in his Lexus.
The fake bill was labeled as “paper ancestor money,” which is burned in traditional Chinese culture to symbolically send them to spirits for material goods in the afterlife. But, instead of quietly eating the loss, the restaurant went public. The business pulled out stills of the man from their security footage and posted them on Facebook along with a photo of his fake bill.
“We have cameras everywhere. We have license plate readers, we have facial recognition that we had to invest in because, unfortunately, these things keep happening to small businesses around here,” Moriarty said. (via First Alert 4)
Dawn Lamb, a bartender at Michael’s for 32 years, also expressed his frustration at regular dine-and-dash incidents, saying, “We work for our tips, and this affects us. The profit margins are too small for this to keep happening.” So, “if you do this,” he continued, “we are going to expose you, and we’re going to make it aware. So we can again prevent this from happening.”
Then, in a twist no one expected, the man came back. According to Moriarty, when they posted the man’s face on their Facebook account, he returned to the restaurant on Wednesday afternoon, apologized, settled his bill with real money, and even left a tip for the server. The restaurant then deleted the post with his face, having the purpose fulfilled.
It’s unclear whether guilt, embarrassment, or the fear of being recognized at every restaurant and store in St. Louis pushed him to return, but the restaurant’s plan worked.
