BUENOS AIRES — We know taking soap, lotions or slippers from a hotel is a thing — especially if you paid through the nose for a room. But what about taking from a restaurant? Like a glass with a pretty Martini or Cinzano brand on it, a salt shaker or the restaurant‘s designer toilet brush? Well, that’s also a thing.
People who simply adore other people’s things will spot them in places ranging from a fancy restaurant to the neighborhood café, or an ordinary bar. And if it’s while traveling abroad, so much the better!
Businesses are aware of this nasty, irritating, yet pervasive habit among paying customers whom they can hardly chide. One solution is to take preventive measures like, sadly, furnishing dining tables with cheaper and less tempting cutlery or service items.
So what are the items diners like to take home?
Small souvenirs
The table itself is a flashpoint, especially for women, with a medley of small items that fit into a handbag. In the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, Eduardo Massa, co-owner of Mondongo y Coliflor, a stylish neighborhood eatery, says “We have five-star cutlery from Volf. We know we have to replace at least 20 units every three months.”
The venues we spoke to agreed: Cutlery and glassware were the most frequently taken items.
They also concurred that customers seem especially fond of branded glassware. The Buller Brewing Company, a pub in the capital’s upmarket Recoleta district, decided to stop using them: “We don’t put our brand anymore on any glass or pint glass,” says the owner Adrián Amerino, as it’s “a perfect invitation for those who love to take home a souvenir.”
The electric hand dryer was stolen — cables, plug and all.
Olive oil, the price of which has risen of late, has become a valuable target in certain restaurants. The solution for one food entrepreneur, Julián Díaz, is that “we often put it on the table without a cap or put a bigger bottle that is more difficult to put into a handbag or backpack.”
His eateries will also place wooden pepper grinders on the table for immediate use, before taking them back. It’s not for nothing, says Díaz, “those extra big pepper grinders nobody could take home became fashionable for a while.”
Secret urges
Thieving has positively flourished in the toilet due to the privacy it provides. Often it’s an item that just happens to catch your eye — hence the saying “opportunity makes the thief” — but in cases, the act clearly required thought, and planning.
Buenos Aires restaurant suppliers love the anecdote of the customer who was caught twice hiding a toilet seat under her fur coat. A toilet seat was indeed stolen at the Buller pub, though the thief was never caught. Likewise, the electric hand dryer, “cables, plug and all.” This, arguably, was nothing compared to the urinal that was unscrewed and stolen from a tea house lavatory some years back.
It must be the naughty instinct or a secret urge you would never reveal.
Massa says he is surprised by the number of times toilet paper has been stolen. “I would have thought if you have money to go out for dinner, you must have toilet paper at home,” he says. He reflects: “It must be the naughty instinct or a secret urge you would never reveal.”
Sometimes the harm done is more than just costly. At Los Galgos, one of Díaz‘s eateries, the restaurant had to screw in a cage over the emergency light in the bathroom, because, says Díaz, “if they take it and your restaurant is inspected, you’ve got a big problem: not having those lights is a civil offense.”
The thief in question admittedly has some courage in risking humiliation — or is it just cheek? Amerino, one of the owners of Buller, says “when you see them stealing and call out the customer, they’re rarely offended. Generally [the thief] puts on a poker face and gives it back.”
Díaz says in turn that the practice is deplorable but too petty for serious action, adding, “I’m not going to call the police” for little items like a pint glass or cutlery. He prefers the “greater subtlety” of shaming, he says: “the embarrassment is enough and, depending on the situation, you might even make a joke at their expense.”
