An Italian pizzeria owner has been praised for her bravery after managing to track down a pair of “dine and dash” tourists and handing them the bill.
The French women had enjoyed pizza and a few glasses of Aperol spritz at Ai Due Re pizzeria in Civitanova Marche, a town on the Adriatic coast, racking up a €44 bill. But they left without paying.
Michela Malatini, the pizzeria’s owner, told local media the pair arrived without a reservation and had ordered two pizzas and four spritzes. “When it was time to pay, they got up and slowly walked out of the door,” she said.
They might have got away with it, except for surveillance cameras and the power of social media.
Malatini shared a CCTV image of the pair on Facebook and, via those who commented on the post, she was soon able to trace them to their lodgings at a holiday apartment in the town.
This was not the first time Malatini’s pizzeria had encountered “dine and dashers”, but on this occasion she was not prepared to let them get away with it.
Early the next morning, she went to the apartment and knocked on the door, waking the women up before presenting them with their bill. “The two women were very helpful and immediately handed over the money without the slightest protest,” Malatini told Macerata chronicles.
“It’s not about the money; we don’t like being taken for a ride. Unfortunately, such episodes are happening more and more often. We can trace them through the surveillance cameras, so it’s not easy to get away with. And, after many years of experience, you can intuit who intends to leave without paying,” Maceratesi added.
She also emphasised how hard her staff worked and that seeing customers attempting to get away without paying for their food “is a slap in the face for our work”.
Malatini was lauded for her “brilliance” and “bravery” by commenters on Instagram. “You did good!” one wrote.
“Dine and dash” is a growing problem in other European countries too. In July, UK restaurant bosses spoke out about its financial and mental impact.
In Italy, the dashers tend to be tourists. In July, a couple of young visitors to a restaurant in Verbania, Piedmont, left without paying the bill only to have to make an embarrassing return because one had left his mobile phone on the table. By that point, the restaurant owner had called the police, who were there to greet them.
