What Happens if you Can’t Pay for your Restaurant Meal?
strainedly By danderma | June 19, 2013
This may be a strange matter to ponder but I can’t help do so. When we were children reading comics or watching old movies, when people cannot pay for their food in a restaurant the restaurant makes them either peel the potatoes or wash the dishes until the price of their meal is paid off.
Now, as a person I have my own share of obsessions and insecurities, perhaps a tad more than other normal, therefore whenever I sit down at a restaurant I always get a fleeting panic attack, sometimes at a subconscious level, about not being able to pay for my meal at check time and I might end up washing the dishes afterwards. Piles and piles of dirty dishes, perhaps for days on end.
Paranoid? A little, but the situation can happen. What do restaurants do if they present you with the check and somehow it turns out you can’t pay at all? You lost your wallet, or you don’t have cash on you and your card won’t work? Do restaurants smile and wave you off? Do they ask for something in exchange, like a phone or a watch or a civil ID until you get your money? Or… well I have to ask, excuse me, do they make you wash the dishes? Do they make you wash the dishes? Do they?
Did you ever find yourself in this situation? Unable to pay for your meal in a restaurant?What would the restaurant really and truly do in that situation?
hahaha I have the same feeling every time I don’t have cash and only my card! And I always throw that joke were I will end up peeling potatoes or washing the dishes!
It happened once for real with me, but since I am a regular customer they asked me to pay the bill later with a big smile on their faces 😀 I couldn’t wait till the next day so I paid it later on the same day.
Its good to know I’m not alone in thinking potato peeling and washing dishes :p
What a nice restaurant! Its a good thing you are a regular… thank god you didn’t wash anything!
hehe that would be fun right :p
Nooooo :p
I Actually had a friend that couldn’t pay for his meal!
His wallet was missing but he had his civil ID in the car (I know who leaves their Civil ID in the car) anyways the manager told him give me your Civil ID and when you have the money just bring the money to me and you’ll get it ID back!
Hope this helps! AWESOME POSTS BTW!
Thank you! Its a good thing your friend leaves his civil ID in the car so he could use it as a collateral! No dish washing then!
Well, after 9/11 it has been highly banned in Saudi to give anyone your civil ID even if it is a police officer.
Therefore, the restaurant will more likely ask you to call someone to bring you money, if you fail to find anyone they will call the police.
Unfortunately restaurants do not have a clear policy, but it is a really bad idea to leave your civil ID with someone else. This is how most of the innocent people in Guantanamo got in trouble in the first place. Their ID cards were reported as stolen or lost a few years before, then it was used later by terrorist to enter places and commit bombing and suicidal attacks!!
We have been advised to report any police officer who asks to keep it, so imagine leaving it in a restaurant !!
I never thought about it like that before! I’m not sure if its banned in Kuwait or not but apparently people don’t mind keeping their civil id as collateral. So no dish washing?
Not that I know of. It happened once to my older brother in the 1990s. He was still a teenager and his friends stole his wallet right before payment time to make fun of him. So the manager asked him to leave his expensive watch until he brings some money. Yeh.. No cell phones back then.. HOW DID WE SURVIVE ? Ha Ha.. do you remember car phones? I used to think that my dad was the coolest ever because he had one loooool sorry, I could not resist remembering how different it used to be before the invention of this tiny gadget we call cellphone 😛
I think leaving a watch is far safer now these days than leaving the civil id! The days before the iPhone are a blur for me but I do remember that having the big car phone was a thrill :p
This happens in Kuwait A LOT! Any restaurant will ask for the Civil ID! EVEN in gas stations (Happened to me once) my car was going to stop at any moment and I didn’t have my wallet with me!
So its like a rule? If he cannot pay, he just gives out the civil id? Interesting but what if he doesn’t have the civil id?
it actually happened to me twice !!
the first time i was in Ruby Tuesday Salmia with my cousin and i have forgotten my KNet at home .. i called mom and told her to bring the KNet to me.. she was super maddddddd hhhhh
the second time was in the avenues and i was a couple of KDs short so i found out a that one of my friend was at the avenues and called him for help and promised i’ll give him back his money as soon as i can hhhh so embarressing!!
Your mom drove all the way to Ruby Tuesdays maskeena! I cannot imagine how it must have felt for you both times! Lucky we live in the age of mobile phones! You didn’t have to wash dishes at least :p
Once, AGES ago, I was still in High School, so probably 12 years ago, I was with my friend and I had taken my younger cousin out for dinner at Chilis, when I saw one of my classmates, he came up to me and asked me if I had an extra 20 KD, because the guys he was with had dined and dashed and he felt bad for the waiter, I gave him the money.
Around two years later, after high school graduation and I think after our first year of college, we were hanging out and suddenly the same classmate looks at me and gives me 20 KD and was like “I think I never paid you back for the money I took from you years ago”
LOL
Can people dine and dash? Is it even possible? Poor waiter! Your friend is a really decent guy
ha ha ha… i have to try this!!!
i always think about it.. what if my card doesnt work then what lol..
now i am really interested to do it 😀
Lool try it and see how they react in Oman