How long is too long to wait for your restaurant bill after you’ve asked your server for it? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? At what point do you start to ask for your ticket again so you can pay it and move the heck on with your day?
Maybe, it’s a sign from the restaurant powers-that-be that you should just up and leave the restaurant without paying. Then again, what if you’re being set up for the reboot of What Would You Do with host John Quinones, who’s waiting outside to ask why you thought it would be a good idea to stiff a business on their ticket?
Or, maybe your server fainted from hunger, which has happened before, and is receiving medical attention, meaning your ticket is the least of their worries at that moment. Do you really want to give them a dine-and-dash to worry about once they finally come to, on top of whatever health-related issues they’ve possibly got going on?
These are the scenarios that were likely floating through the heads of Lauren Petrosian and her friend as they sat listlessly for 45 minutes after getting a meal together.
Petrosian (@daisyku_) uploaded footage of her and her pal seated at a restaurant table, the clear aftermath of a finished hot pot meal before them. In the viral TikTok that’s accrued over 1.1 million views, Petrosian writes that she and her companion considered dining and dashing because the wait for their bill was so long, even if the food was delicious.
@daisyku_ hot pot was gas tho
♬ original sound – THE OFFICE
The TikToker asks in a text overlay of the video: “When’s the appropriate time to dine and dash bc we’ve been waiting for the bill for 45 mins.”
Several folks who responded to her video commiserated with Petrosian’s pain, writing that waiting on the bill after finishing a meal is no fun.
“Waiting for the bill for long periods of time makes me feel like I’m being held hostage,” one user wrote.
Another person said that after they found themselves in this situation they had to basically just play it by ear, putting down on the table what they thought the total for the meal would be in cash before high tailing it out of there. “This happened to me one time! We asked 3 times over an hour. I threw down what we thought the total would be and left,” they claimed.
Someone else said that they used creative tactics to get a server to their table to close out their receipt. “This happened to me and I called the restaurant from the table and asked for my bill,” they suggested.
One viewer thought that Petrosian and her pal would’ve been well within their dining rights to get out of there without paying. “No cause last time I waited about an hour & I should have just left bc our server literally left & no one took over ???” the user said.
There are folks who have very, very strong opinions as to what the appropriate wait time for receiving their restaurant bill is. One Redditor contended on the site’s r/unpopularopinion sub that anything 30 minutes and above means that the diners left sitting at their table should receive their food for free.
“But if I have asked for my bill 3-5 times, expressed urgency and still have not received it 30 minutes later, I should be allowed to leave. My time is valuable and if you aren’t going to respect it, I shouldn’t feel bad if you have to pay for it,” they wrote.
A legal question posted on Stack Exchange also argues that just because you’re leaving the restaurant without paying right then and there doesn’t mean that you necessarily don’t have the intention to pay it. If diners are accosted by management only when they try to make their exit, they could argue that they had every intention of paying the bill, it was just taking them forever to hand it over. A good way of protecting yourself is to leave your contact information on the table, and maybe snapping a photo of you doing so to prove that you made an effort to remit payment after the fact.
“You have a legal obligation to pay the bill; however, there is no contract about when your payment is due. You can leave at any time without paying, so long as you have the intention to pay. You can leave your contact details so there is proof of your intent to pay later,” a user on the site wrote.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Petrosian via TikTok comment for further information.
