Restaurant issues plea after group of 14 walk out without paying £400 bill

A Merseyside restaurant has issued a public plea to track down a group of fourteen diners who walked out without paying their bill.

Staff at Rokka Cafe and Steakhouse in Wirral said the diners became ‘aggressive’ and refused to pay their £404 bill on Saturday evening in an incident that has left the whole team feeling ‘deflated’. 

In a lengthy Instagram post, the restaurant’s boss explained: “Unfortunately tonight we have had a party of 14 leave an unpaid bill of over £400.

“They received the same great service and good quality good as all our paying customers this evening. We are giving this table the benefit of the doubt, to pay within 48 hours before we report this incident to the police and release their images on our social media.

@rokka_brombrough / Instagram

“We are an independently run business with a small team and we work hard to get where we are and we deserve better than this.”

Front of house staff Christina, who helped to serve the table on Saturday evening, told the Liverpool Echo that the table’s bill is more money than she earns in a week.

She explained: “We are a very small independent business. We only have fourteen tables so what they did last night – we turned people away for them because we didn’t have room for them because they took extra tables and extra chairs – so we’ve lost paying customers as well as losing £400.

Read More: Chef calls out ‘opportunists looking for a free meal’ who refused to pay bill 

“When they’ve asked for the bill they’ve seen the price of it, they’ve proceeded to barter the price of the bill down saying they’re not paying that.

“Everything off their plates was gone. There was no food left over, they sent nothing back.It’s only upon paying the bill that the issue happens.”

Christina added that, after they refused to take money off of the bill, some of the men from the group became aggressive and started shouting at members of staff, including two fifteen-year-old waitresses.

Christina also recalled one man who insisted he would pay his share of the bill, only to sneak out and ‘make an escape’ in his car. 

She added that the whole experience has left the team feeling ‘really deflated’, noting that they work ‘extremely hard’.

She said: “It’s called hospitality for a reason we want you to come in, we want you to have a nice time. If there’s a problem we want to fix it but when we have tables like that it affects the rest of the restaurant and the rest of our customers who are trying to have a nice time.”

While Christina and the team gave the culprits forty-eight hours to cough up, they have since confirmed on their Facebook page that the matter has since been passed to the police, who will receive CCTV from the restaurant in hopes of identifying the diners.