Monday, May 4, 2009

Some Tricks and Techniques to not pay in a Restaurant

This is some of the Tricks "naughty" customer use in my Restaurant to avoid paying or to pay less.
Please don't use this tricks on anyone !! :P

Situation : Peak hour in a Restaurant / Full house / Busy busy busy

1. They lie
They know that you don't know where they sat, and you're too busy to check, so they claim from a Table with less food and pay for that one instead of their real table with more food.
I know it sounds like the cashier is really stupid, but when you have a full house, you don't have time to double-check on everything. people are lining up to pay, waiters are constantly handing you new order sheets, phones are ringing, etc. So it happens.

2. They keep on changing tables / moving to another table.
They sit on Table 1 and then they order something.
then they move to Table 2 and told the waiters cos it's more comfortable bla bla and they order something else. So after they've finished eating.
They quietly move to the outside area , not telling the waiters and they order more drinks.
After they're done, they come inside to the cashier and said that they were from Table 12 from outside.
Cashier suspects nothing and they leave after paying.
Waiters thought that they've paid for everything because they were obviously at the cashier and they have a receipt with them.

3. They Pretend to pay
This is a similar trick.
Customer would order food and sit where the cashier can't see them (outside area) and when they're done, One of them comes to the cashier and buys 1 drink and pays for it directly.
Again, cashier doesn't suspect anything and they leave after that one guy paid for that 1 drink.
Waiters also thought that they've paid because that one guy went straight to the cashier.

4. They just leave.
Sometimes when you have a mad house, waiters are running around like crazy, orders keep coming in, etc. They actually just leave.
They just get up and leave the table !!!
Some got caught and they made up excuses and said stuff like "we were going to the bathroom first" or "we had to put our kids to the car first" bla bla bla.
Yeah right, 8 people in a table and all of them had go to the bathroom at the same time while in fact they were walking away from the bathroom and towards the car ?
or 5 adults have to take 1 kid to the car before someone goes to the cashier and pays ?

Yepp... those are some of the Tricks and Techniques that are used to escape pay.
I will post more as I remember more of their tricks.

It may be quite fun and exhilirating to be able to run away from a Restaurant without paying, if you're a pennyless brat !!!!
But come on , It's not fun on the Restaurant owner's side.
Yes you might think the Restaurant's always crowded, and they're rich already and they don't mind a few misses every once in a while.
But you've got to understand that Restaurant owners also have bills to pay and they're not cheap :
- Electrical bills,
- Taxes,
- Water bills,
- Gas,
- Food supplies,
- Maintenance
(you have no idea how often pipes leaks, Air conditioner break, Doors broken, cuttlery missing, plates/bowls broken, Kitchen equipments broken, Furnitures need replacing, etc)
- Rents (if still renting) or Mortgage (if owned)
- Advertising.
- Insurance
- Phone bills
- Employees salaries
- etc etc

But then again, from time to time, you're surprised by the very kind customers.
They've paid for their bills and started walking to their car and returned and apologized because they forgot to pay for one drink that wasn't even printed on the bill, then they explained that they ordered that drink last so it wasn't already included in the bill.
Some have even left for 30 mins and they returned, even though they're already halfway home and told you that they haven't paid for that bowl of soup.
Amazing isn't it ?
Yes that doesn't happen very often, but it still shows that there are still honest and polite people out there and it makes you appreciate them even more :)
Thank you guys :)

Which Table sir ?

Sometimes customers can be so ignorant of where they're sitting.

Here's the scenario,
My Restaurant has an indoor area and an outdoor area.
The Cashier is indoor.

A customer from the Outdoor area came to the cashier and asked for the Bill.
I politely asked him his Table number.
He lazily pointed outside and said "I sat there" and then looked at me, confused why I didn't know where he sat.
So I asked him again, "which table was it sir ?"
and he said " I don't know, it's out there, next to the second table" and looked at me.
So that's when I usually turn to the waiters and ask them to find out where this customer was sitting.

Here's the thing.
When you sit outside, the cashier from inside doesn't have a view of the entire Restaurant. It's not that the Cashier is ignorant of the customer, we simply can't see where you were sitting and we trust that you will honestly tell us where you sat. Plus we have piles of orders to input to the computer, so it's not like we have free time to stare and observe where everyone's sitting.

And this happens quite often.
Some customers would sometimes be impatient when I didn't know where they sit.
Some would just blurt out any Table number and got annoyed when they get someone else's bill instead.

And some customers use this as an opportunity to point to someone else's table with less order, thus less money to pay, and claim it as their table.
Usually the waiters know this trick and quickly let me know where the customer's real table was.

Some customers are of course extremly nice and tell me where they sat.
That's when you feel like hugging them for being so nice :)

Do you hate money ?

So... working as a cashier, I handle customers when they wanna pay right.

So they ordered a drink, then they come up to me.
I smile at them
Then they asked the price of the drink.
I tell them the price.
Then they take out a crunched up money from their pants pocket or their purse.
yes... literary a crunched up dollar bill from their pocket and put it on the table.
sometimes they throw it on the table.
and sometimes, instead of crunched up, the money's folded into 5 parts

So
Why dear customers ?
Do you hate money so much you have to crunch it up before putting it in your pockets ? Were you in such a hurry you have to crunch the cash and quickly stuff it in your pants ?

There's nothing that I can do about it.
So I usually take the money and I take my time "straightening" the money in front of the customer, just to make a point that the correct way to handle money is not to crunch it up and to make sure it's a complete / not torn money.
Then I smile and give them their change.
Thank you :)

Here comes the Fun stuff

So....
What are the perks about working in a Restaurant ?
Well... here comes the Fun stuff....
;)