Customers Dine & Dash at Restaurant, Boss Tries to Force Server to Cover Cost

“My sister works for a small restaurant in the area as a server. They charged her $200 for a dine and dash” Posted by u/Sylentt_

The comment section

Plenty of redditors responded with advice for OP's sister.

“So here are the basics for this. Do not tell the employer you are reporting them. File the report. They will probably fire her when the department contacts them, which is also illegal. If or when they do that, she needs to tell the person managing her case for the labor department that she was the victim of a retaliatory termination for filing a wage complaint. Then find another job and let the department of labor sort it all out.” added u/mjh2901.

“She should also contact a labor lawyer if she gets fired. They might be happy to take the restaurant to court for wrongful termination.” said u/djazzie.

“If you’re in the US and googling for a lawyer, you’ll want to search for an employment lawyer. Labor lawyers deal with organized labor/unions, where employment lawyers deal with stuff like wage and hour violations like this more generally.” said u/unicorn8dragon.

“Really wish I’d known this back in my server days - making servers cover the bill of dine-and-dashers was pretty common everywhere I worked (2005-2007ish, Texas).” said u/MiniaturePhilosopher.

“Apparently some family eating caught her crying about it and they covered it for her, so she doesn’t have to pay anymore, but it’s still their policy and they asked her to, so that might make things more difficult” said OP.

“Morally she should, but I don’t know if she will. I’m going to try and convince her to after her shift tonight” said OP.

Some redditors ignored OP's main point and instead focused on the fact that OP was seemingly defending dine and dashers in their original post.

OP's response

After a handful of critical comments, OP updated their post with some clarifications. 

Read the original thread here.