Have you ever had a gun pointed to your head?

Here’s what you do when asked to pay for a check someone has walked out on. Pay the check and make sure you get a receipt marked by the manager stating you paid and why. Then, contact a lawyer. NO restaurant can make the waiters pay for a walkout. Here’s why.
In 1984, I had some young as#%*es walkout on thier check at Pizza Hut. While there had been no spoken policy of chasing miscreants that dined and dashed, several times the manager herself had run out in pursuit of these as#%*es, as had I WITH her from time to time. Well, this time, I caught one of them and was leading him back to the restaurant when the other two popped out of hiding. You can imagine what happened next. There, in the middle of a busy access road at a mall in Columbus Ohio, I was beaten to the ground and severely kicked several times in the head as cars came up to the scene and moved around the situation as they made their way to the mall to shop on this, Dec. 23rd, the night before the eve of Christ’s birthday. NO ONE stopped to help.
I made it up and away from them and ran back to the restaurant. Long story short, three months later I developed intense headaches and was found to have a subdural hematoma, a blood clot on the brain. After a nine hour surgery where they nearly lost me on the table due to thinned blood caused by my heavy dosage of aspirin that week, I spent the next two weeks recovering in the hospital. Having kept out the skullpiece, I returned nine months later where they cut out a rib to graft into my skull, which is what remains there to this day.
The moral of the story here is that whether a spoken policy or implied through action on the part of the restaurant, THIS is why they have NO right to demand you pay for THEIR customers actions. When it becomes YOUR business by protecting YOUR pocketbook, you’re likely to take actions that would result in some harm coming to someone, under the umbrella of your position within THEIR company. DO NOT fall for it. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!
P.S.- So you know, I’m still a waiter and since that very night I have never, nor will I ever again, chase after a restaurants guests who skip out on their bills. When mgmt. has made issues in regards to this position with or around me, I have then told them my story and NONE have made me pursue guests.

To the previous poster that got beat up at Pizza Hut - Did you receive any compensation from the company? Do you still suffer any ill effects from this incident? I hope every thing worked out for you

Even though this action is totally illegal(I looked it up) the managers at the Sportsmen Lodge put the onus of responsibility on the server/bartender for a walk out. They say the same crap. Either you pay, or get written up. They fail to realize, (or just don’t care) that sometimes when it’s busy, you can’t watch every tables whereabouts. I took the write up. the problem was, I already had one for entering the wrong tip amount on a credit card(actually less then they wrote in) So this was my second write up. One more and I could have been terminated. I got fired anyway, because I wrote a letter to my manager because they cut my shifts down. The n the rat bastard owner, Mr.Patrick Halloran, had the balls to appeal my unemployment insurance, after he said,”You have my word I won’t fight your employment.” Well, I won the appeal. A great person to get in touch with at the labor board is Monnie Martinez. A word to the wise:Do not work for The Sportsmen’s Lodge!

If that is not a law suite waiting to happen , i don know what is.

The legal policy on walk-outs is an automatic write-up. The manager was actually doing the bartender a favor by offering to let him pay it instead of getting a write-up. A server never HAS to pay the walk-out, but they are supposed to get written-up. Three write-ups and you are fired. This may sound horrible, but not everyone is a saint, and many servers claim to have been walked out on when the money is actually in their pocket. The write-up policy is to protect owners from internal theft, the manager offered the deal to keep their employee out of write-up trouble. As for the bartender getting a gun pulled on them for chasing a customer outside to claim unpaid money? That was his own fault for leaving the establishment, servers and bartenders are not supposed to confront guests, that is the manager’s and doormen’s job.

I do work in a restaurant, many times I have ran after someone who tried to skip on the tab. One time a car backed up into me because I tried to get their tag number. Another time I tried to chase one of the guys who tried to hold up our company with a gun. Never then did we have to pay for walk outs, this was just last year. Now that times are bad they are now making us pay for walkouts. We work the grave yard this is when all the crazys come out. There are times we get so busy and all we have on staff is three servers, one manager, one cook and one dish washer. We have not host/hostess and they expect us to be mighty man and want us to keep an eye on everything. We are a company who get large groups at a time, when they go to pay, this is when a table tries to walk. One of the server has to take cash, the other two are busy sitting customers or running food. Manager could be in the kitchen to help the cook. Us servers (3) have had at one time 40 to 50 sometimes 60 guest count in one hour. So you tell me, can we prevent a walkout?