Police seek diners who left without paying big bill at burger restaurant

Police say that they are treating the incident, which happened on the evening of February 5th, as theft.

Simon Wetton, the owner of the Kingsbury Street restaurant in Marlborough, said that he is owed £174 by the diners, a party of 10.

He said: “We do something called the burger challenge, which is that if you can eat 12 burgers in six minutes then the bill is on us.

"But to do the burger challenge it has to be pre-arranged as we have to be on-hand to time it properly.

“These people said they wanted to do the challenge but it was Saturday night, we were very busy and we didn’t have the staff and time to time it, it’s meant to be pre-arranged, so we said that unfortunately, they couldn’t do the challenge.

“They still ordered 12 burgers and said they wanted to do the challenge. We explained that sorry, that was just not practical.

“But when it came to pay they said they had done the challenge in six minutes and would not pay for the burgers, the bill was on us.

"Staff again explained that it had to be timed by us. They argued with the waitress about this, she went to get the manager and by the time he arrived they had walked out.

Your bill sir, madam.

“So I rang them and said look you owe me this money, please come back and pay it and they hung up on me, after saying they were going to slag off the restaurant on social media.”

He added: “As it happens, I could see from the CCTV footage that it is crystal clear that they didn’t eat the burgers in six minutes, even though it was not pre-arranged.”

Mr Wetton reported the incident to the police, who said in a statement: “We are now investigating this as theft and would ask anyone with information to call us on 101, quoting reference 54220012944.”

Mr Wetton added: “I don’t want to waste police time or that of the courts but, on top of all that restaurants have gone through with the lockdown, this is a matter of principle and people should not be allowed to get away with it.”