DETROIT – The coronavirus pandemic has been hard on restaurants, many of which have had to battle just to stay in business.
That’s why the level of frustration is so high at Sloppy Chops Restaurant, located on McNichols Road in Detroit. Surveillance video captured several people rushing to their vehicles, skipping out on a very large bill.
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“It’s disappointing that we still have people who come out and still do childish things like that,” said Kelley Brown, with Sloppy Chops.
Kelley Brown is describing those childish things as the recent dine-and-dash at their restaurant Sloppy Chops on West McNichols Road. Brown said the group of people came inside for dinner on Wednesday. He said the restaurant was having a perfect start to the dinner service, but things turned left quickly.
“One of the ladies we have seen in here several different times. She sits at the bar, she sat at several different tables,” Brown said. “They had lobster, lamb chops, like the whole to do, drinks and everything.”
And when it was time to pay, they left in just seconds. One of the individuals had a jersey on with the name Finkle and #5 on the back.
“Next thing we know, we just see them darting toward the door,” said Brown.
Brown said he was helping another customer at the bar when he heard his employee screaming.
“She was like ‘That was a $340 bill,’ I was like, ‘Good.’ She was like ‘No, they ran,’” Brown recalled. “That bill was a large chunk of our business for the day.”
Which really hurt because of the pandemic.
“It’s hard to keep staff. It’s hard, because people don’t feel fully comfortable coming out and dining in. It kind of hurts,” said Brown.
Brown said they’re now taking another look at their safety plans to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The first thing they’re going to do is hire security.
More: Detroit crime news