Don\u2019t fork around with these New Yorkers!<\/p>\n
Pushed-to-the-limit NYC restaurateurs are faced with another battle in the fight for their financial lives \u2014\u00a0a growing scourge of dine-and-dash incidents. <\/p>\n
From deluded influencers<\/a> to old-school scofflaws<\/a>, this latest affront is just one more headache for inflation-embattled businesses to handle \u2014\u00a0and seemingly on their own, too, in an era where law enforcement, plates heaped high with meatier crimes, tend to view the Class A misdemeanor as small potatoes.<\/p>\n Britney Cari\u00f1o, owner of Talavera Cantina, is pictured at her restaurant in Mott Haven, Bronx. @talaveracantina\/instagram<\/p>\n Some fed-up proprietors aren\u2019t taking the insult lying down \u2014 instead flocking to social media to name and shame the culprits, often with the help of their followers. Throwing the perps into Instagram jail, it turns out, is a much quicker way to justice than ratting out tab-sentee customers to the cops.<\/p>\n Britney Cari\u00f1o, owner of Talavera Cantina in The Bronx\u2019s trendy Mott Haven neighborhood, rushed to the restaurant\u2019s social accounts last May, after a table of customers walked out on their $112 tab.<\/p>\n The alleged terrible trio sauntered into the Mexican cocktail bar on Cinco de Mayo \u2014 the busiest day of the month, Cari\u00f1o said. They ordered tacos, chips and guacamole and four frozen margaritas.<\/p>\n After enjoying themselves, they apparently slipped out the door without paying the bill \u2014\u00a0during a power outage that had torpedoed the POS system tracking their checks. While reviewing payments processed offline, Cari\u00f1o spotted the outstanding balance and caught the group red-handed on security footage.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the women, she takes the check tray and she actually puts it under her purse,\u201d the second-generation business owner told The Post. \u201cThey look around again and then that\u2019s when they leave.\u201d<\/p>\n Appalled over the fryjacking \u2014 her first in three years running Talavera \u2014 Cari\u00f1o said she aired the diners\u2019 dirty laundry on Instagram with a screen grab of the footage, letting them know that if they paid up, everything would be fine. <\/p>\n \u201cDine-and-dashes have always existed, but the fact that now we can utilize social media\u2026..you kind of bring back shame,\u201d said Britney Cari\u00f1o (pictured outside of Talavera Cantina).<\/p>\n \u201cMy first instinct wasn\u2019t to call the police because honestly, sometimes there\u2019s nothing that police can do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n To her surprise and delight, one of the perps\u2019 older brothers quickly came in and covered the tab.<\/p>\n \u201cDine-and-dashes have always existed, but the fact that now we can utilize social media \u2026 you kind of bring back shame,\u201d she declared.<\/p>\n John Truong of Long Island City Vietnamese restaurant Chef Papa is another New Yorker who hit back, after being left high-and-dry by a wannabe foodfluencer, who promised coverage in exchange for $200 worth of food and drinks. <\/p>\n Fahmida Sultana<\/a>, who Truong said left his staff only $6 as a tip before sauntering out the door, welched on the supposed deal \u2014 leaving him with little recourse but to air his frustrations in Instagram<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cWe trusted this person to come in to record a video and I feel like she scammed us,\u201d Truong lamented in the clip, posted last November.<\/p>\n \u201cShe changed her username or deleted her account,\u201d said one viewer, while another wrote, \u201cTime to call out all the so-called influencers.\u201d<\/p>\n It was only after his video that she finally responded \u2014 with a scathing and since-deleted review.<\/p>\n Truong\u2019s $200 is nothing, however, compared to NYC\u2019s most famous recent eat-and-run case \u2014\u00a0that of dine-and-dash diva Pei \u201cLu\u201d Chung, who was arrested seven times<\/a> after stiffing Michelin-starred restaurants, including Peter Luger and Francie, out of hundreds of dollars. <\/p>\n She was finally released over the winter after being declared psychologically unfit to stand trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n