Owner of a small restaurant in Fresno has had enough of dine-and-dashers

FRESNO, California — A small family restaurant in Fresno is fed up with people who just eat and then leave, and is blaming them.

Patricia Escovedo, owner of The Train Depot, says one man even tried three times.

She says the company has been in business for over 45 years and until this year it had never been this bad.

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She says she has received about 5 to 6 reports of dine-and-dash attacks so far.

For small business owners like Escovedo, who are already trying to stay afloat despite current inflation and the increase in the minimum wage, every cent counts.

“It’s hard,” she said.

She says it doesn’t help if she says people eat and then leave.

“We have the situation where the guy comes three times and then just leaves,” she explained.

Each time he was caught on camera.

Would you believe he showed up again on Wednesday? Escovedo called him over, stalled him, and called the police.

“They came here to ask him to leave and take care of the situation because I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’s like and I didn’t want to put myself or my staff in any situation,” she said.

She was able to prevent him from stealing from her a third time.

But the next day it happened. This time, she says, it was two different middle-aged men.

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They had a bill of $67 and left without paying.

She says they told her they were going outside to smoke a cigarette.

“You try to do the right thing and let people go out and smoke a cigarette, but unfortunately the bad ones are going to cancel out the good ones and we need to start making people pay before they walk out the door,” she said.

According to Escovedo, she had no choice but to post it on social media to make other businesses aware and hopefully discourage them from coming back.

“I know I’m not getting my money back,” she explains. “I want other restaurants to know this is happening, to see her face and know. So the same thing doesn’t happen to them.”

Escobedo says that in the case of the man who ran away several times, she called the police to escort him out because she had previously had an encounter with another customer who had become violent.

She says he threw a knife before he went out.