Dine-and-dashing family of nine flee restaurant in van after racking up £160 bill

A family of nine allegedly carried out a carefully planned dine-and-dash before making their escape in a van after leaving behind a £160 restaurant bill.

CCTV captured the group, made up of five adults and four children, slipping out of a Turkish Kitchen in Hertfordshire in small groups before the final diner walked out and climbed into a white van parked directly outside.

The family had spent £159.60 on their meal at the restaurant on June 30.

General manager Klaus Ademi said nothing about the group raised suspicion while they were dining.

However, after staff brought over the bill, the customers repeatedly insisted they would pay ‘in a minute’.

Security footage then appears to show the group leaving two or three at a time, with one person remaining at the table until everyone else had gone.

Moments later, the final diner walked out of the restaurant and gets into the waiting van, which then drives away.

Klaus, 30, believes that everything had been carefully planned from the start, as he said: ‘They were normal and they were ordering normal food, not exaggerating or over-ordering drinks,’ he said.

‘They kept saying, “We’re going to pay soon, just in a minute”.

‘Then they all started to leave one by one and he, the last diner, left as well with the car waiting right in front of the door.

‘It was like a getaway car. It was a whole plan to leave without paying.’

After the final customer had left, he added that ‘the staff saw him leaving and checked whether someone else had paid, but they hadn’t’.

The group’s order included a sharing platter, lamb ribs, three beers, a strawberry daiquiri, a Coke Zero and a lemonade.

Klaus, who has worked at the family-run restaurant for seven years, said he was off duty when the incident happened but was shown the CCTV footage afterwards.

‘This hasn’t happened before. It’s a family business and it’s quite a large loss, especially right now when restaurants are struggling,’ he continued.

‘It is hard to make a profit with all the costs rising. It doesn’t just affect us money-wise; it affects the staff emotionally.

‘You serve them all night, give them good food and good service and then they leave without paying for anything. When the staff told me about it I was shocked, angry and upset.’

The restaurant has shared the CCTV footage on Facebook in the hope of identifying the group and recovering the outstanding bill.

In a post, Turkish Kitchen said: ‘Today, a group of five adults and four children left our restaurant without paying their £159.60 bill.

‘This was not a misunderstanding or an accidental oversight. From everything we witnessed, it appeared to be a deliberate decision to leave without paying.

‘A £159.60 loss is significant for a family-run business like ours and directly affects our staff, suppliers and our ability to keep serving the community.

‘To the people involved, you still have the opportunity to do the right thing by contacting us and settling the outstanding bill.’

Klaus said he intends to report the incident to the police.