Two women who treated themselves to an expensive Cinco de Mayo feast left a New York City restaurant without paying. The pair were caught on surveillance footage leaving Talavera Cantina in the Mott Haven neighborhood in the Bronx on Tuesday without clearing their tab, owner Britney Cariño claimed on Instagram.
Cariño is now looking to identify the dine and dashers, who left her with a $112.77 tab during the restaurant's busiest night of the year, as May 5 fell on a Tuesday for the first time in years. 'As shown here, instead of waiting for their check to be cleared (as everyone else did), they took my check tray, got up, and left. They even had the audacity to take a picture of the Mexican flag as they were leaving,' she wrote on Instagram.
The women enjoyed a dinner of frozen margaritas, chips and guacamole, and tacos to celebrate the Mexican holiday, alongside a third friend who had left earlier in the evening, the owner said. Cariño acknowledged that they were short-staffed, with only herself and her sister as servers, but that the women were the only ones not to settle their tab – a first for her business, which opened in 2023.
'To have the audacity to do this to a small business, let alone a woman-minority-owned establishment, is disgusting,' Cariño said. 'To have this happen to me in my own neighborhood is disgusting. You three are disgusting,' she said.
Cariño has threatened to file a police report with the NYPD if the women do not come back and pay their forgotten bill. 'I will not take this down until this is resolved, so I hope it’s resolved soon,' Cariño wrote. It is unclear if the women have returned to pay their fair share. The Daily Mail has reached out to Talavera Cantina and the NYPD for comment.
Talavera Cantina sells three tacos for between $12.50 and $15.50 and chips and guacamole for $16.50. The restaurant also runs a happy hour, bringing down the $15 margaritas to just $10 from 4pm to 7pm Tuesday to Friday. The restaurant also adds on a 20 percent gratuity. It is unclear if the $112 total included a tip.
In March, Brooklyn's most famous dine and dasher, Pei Chung, 34, was ruled too mentally ill to be tried for stiffing fancy restaurants. She had made a name for herself in the Brooklyn restaurant scene as she often showed up to luxurious restaurants, only to eat without paying her check, leading to several arrests. In her latest arrest, the immigrant was locked up in New York's Rikers Island jail and forced to undergo a psych evaluation in February. A judge dismissed all five charges against her, citing that she's too mentally unfit to stand trial. Despite the charges being dismissed, she will not be released due to her immigration status.
