How Did Stealing Items from Your Favorite Restaurant Become a 'Badge of Honor' Instead of Theft?

How Did Stealing Items from Your Favorite Restaurant Become a 'Badge of Honor' Instead of Theft?


Actually, I’m not sure it has. 

Weird how if you walk into Zara and steal a pair of jeans you’ll likely end up in jail, but steal a restaurant’s menus, copper mule cups, vintage swords the mixologists use for skewering olives, the wickedly hip post-dinner limoncello shot glasses, the expensive chopsticks, vintage salt-shakers, expensive restaurant linen napkins, steak knives, cute espresso spoons, or quirky check presenters and you’re a prince – a real, modern-day cultural hero. 
 
Sure, it would be easy to chalk up these thefts up to the effect of alcohol, but it goes further than this. Perhaps guests just want a take-home souvenir, right? But damn, this doesn’t make sense either – I mean the guests just photographed every single dish and cocktail that came to their table.
 
Then why? 

• Realistically, most guests just assume that theft is part of the restaurant game and what’s a little loss? For example, if dining out and you tip over a glass of wine and it breaks, the restaurant won’t charge you for it. 
• Secondly, most guests assume that restaurant theft is a twisted form of appreciation – “We wouldn’t take it if we didn’t have a good time and if we didn’t like it.”
• And lastly, most guests know that the staff, despite often recognizing when something is missing, won’t confront a guest, making the heist a bit safer. ​