How ‘dine and dash’ became the new shoplifting – and why we’re all paying the price

The closest I’ve ever gotten to dining and dashing was in the pick ’n’ mix aisle of Tesco. A government survey from 2021 found that “food and groceries” were the most commonly stolen items, and now the trend is transferring to restaurants themselves, with customers increasingly “dining and dashing” or doing a runner, as it was once “fondly” called when I worked in the service industry, confirming what I’d always suspected: people really are the worst. open image in gallery One study suggests as many as one in 20 have left without paying This week, Swansea Magistrates’ Court heard the five offences of a couple of ‘dine and dashers’ from Port Talbot who, over a number of months, racked up unpaid bills which totalled £1,168.10. A Barclaycard’s study found that one in 20 people have walked out without paying for their meal, and while some of this was put down to frustration of waiting for a bill to arrive, the trend for a deliberate dine and dash is causing considerable pain across an industry already struggling with the headwinds of Covid and economic turbulence. You’ve seen them – the kind of customers that start their sentences with “can’t you just” and “I know you’re not serving breakfast anymore, but.” The apologists among you will say that these people are simply “sticking it to the man”, that they’re Davids to the Goliaths of capitalism and restaurants charging high prices for what you can make for a third of a price at home are “fair game”.