Consider this a heads-up for restaurant owners: I have been receiving multiple emails about a serial dine and dasher, who has a penchant for dining at quality places all over town (reportedly including Bar Tartine, Urchin Bistrot, Locanda, Marlowe, Rich Table, Cavalier) and manages to keep evading that onerous bill-paying part of the dining experience.
I spoke with a few restaurant employees who recounted their experiences with me, which basically goes like this: the diner, who goes by Glenn or Les, will sit at the counter or bar, for lunch or dinner. He’s extremely friendly, introducing himself to neighboring diners and the servers, sweet-talking everyone around him. He will go to the bathroom and outside to smoke numerous times, which gives servers a false sense of comfort when he isn’t in his chair because he soon returns…well, until he’s gone for good.
He is well dressed, middle-aged, orders heavy (lots of wine and cocktails), and extremely smiley. He also seems to not own a wallet. Ahem. Anyway, here’s the additional problem: not enough restaurants are filing police reports on this guy. He has been cornered and the police have been called to pick him up a couple of times, but there aren’t enough restaurants pressing charges to really put a stop to him. (Yet.) And when he gets caught, he doesn’t seem to really care—he just smiles and acts a bit nonplussed by the whole situation. Amazing. So keep your eyes peeled for this grinning charlatan, and let’s stop this cycle of restaurants being repeatedly ripped off by this guy.
A pic supplied to us of the always-smiling dine and dasher.
