A Florida restaurant owner is calling out dine-and-dashers who target his store for his “wall of shame, filming the culprits and posting the often heated confrontation on social media
Ken Brackins, owner of Rick’s on the River in Tampa, Fla., took matters into his own hands as he guilt-tripped dashers into humiliation following the brazen act — proving his method to be successful.
In one caught-on-camera moment, a restaurant employee chases down a woman who attempted to flee in a Mercedes Benz when she claimed the wind knocked over her pitcher of beer.
“This latest dine and dasher spent her beer money on a fancy, late model Mercedes,” the restaurant captioned a Facebook video, which captured the confrontation and the car’s license plate number.
“There were only a few ounces of beer on the deck. True story,” the rest of the caption read.
Brackins said in an interview with Fox News his method is to simply “use this as also a deterrent.”
He added that the dashers return to the restaurant to pay when they realize their face makes their “wall of shame” online.
“We always make them come back in and pay, that want to pay over the phone — but we make them do the walk of shame and come in and pay,” Brackins said.
The restaurant also revealed some of the sizable meals that dashers leave behind.
They shared a photo of two suspected dashers who had escaped after eating oysters, sandwiches and 6 Long Island ice teas and warned they would “get the PoPo on the GoGo.”
“If anyone recognizes the two newest members of the dine and dash hall of shame, please contact them,” the store said in April. “They have 24 hours to make good on their tab they “forgot” to pay.”
Both were eventually caught, the restaurant said in an update.
In a third clip, two women flee the restaurant — as one makes sure the coast is clear — before they take off in their car while the store snaps their plate numbers.
“Obviously these folks were unaware that if you Dine-N-Dash at Rick’s, you get identified via social media,” the caption said.
“These are the latest perps to Eat it and Beat It and “forgot” to pay, the caption adds on. “Got great pics of you, your car and tag. Return and pay your tab!”
Brackins says since he’s started posting the foolish dashers on social media, “nine of the 10 have resulted in the culprits coming in and settling their tabs,” according to the Daily Mail.
“I have people call and be like, “Hey, I paid, can you take it down?” They get very angry. They say they are going to sue me,” Brackins claims.
Brackins doesn’t want police involved because they are dealing with more serious crimes compared to the dine and dashers, Fox News reported.
“You get a few people that try to just… say that we’re in the wrong,” he told Fox News. “But… hey, we’re not the ones that are… trying to steal something, so if you don’t want to be splashed all over social media, don’t do it.”
