Seeing a customer leave without paying the bill is never pleasant for a restaurateur. This represents a non-negligible prejudice for an establishment. People who commit this illegal act have no interest in returning to the scene, because most of the time, restaurants file a complaint with the police. That said, there are some who send a letter to the owner, a few years later, to apologize.
Zoom in on what happened
Guney Cokkaya is a young man of 23 who now runs the family restaurant called Le Bosphore, located in Mulhouse. One day in 2010, a woman walked into his facility with her children. They had, like everyone present at the place, eaten.
Once their meal was over, the little family should have paid the bill which was worth 50 euros as it should be. However, instead of paying, the mother and her four children left the kebab restaurant without paying the bill. A situation that most restaurateurs encounter quite often. But when the story was to end there, a letter had made it take another turn.
#Mulhouse : left without paying, she reimburses the restaurateur ten years later – https://t.co/4vO9GqwXHx pic.twitter.com/vDgDGPmjyy
— Newspaper L’Alsace (@lalsace) July 29, 2020
This letter, it is obviously this mother who had sent it to Guney Cokkaya. In her note, the mother first wanted to greet the owner of the restaurant. She then reminded the manager that in 2010, she had eaten alongside her four children before leaving without even paying their bill.
Why hadn’t she paid then?
Continuing, the mother wanted to explain to the manager about his actions more than ten years ago. In fact, at that time, this woman had just encountered a heartbreak, since she had just divorced. Therefore, his situation was “desperate”, which prompted him to do this act.
But more than a decade after the fact, the mother of the family could not forget what she had done in the Bosphorus. So, to make up for it, she decided to write this letter in which she apologized to the owner of the restaurant.
“Forgive me, I sincerely regret,” she wrote in conclusion.
To repair her mistakes of the past, the mother insisted on leaving a note of 50 euros in order to repay her debt.
They do not remember the identity of the woman
For information, it was still the father of Guney Cokkya who ran the restaurant, acquired in 2000, when this woman entered their restaurant. At the time, the young man was still only 13 years old and therefore he could not remember what had happened. Thus, Guney Cokkaya decided to carry out investigations with his family, in particular his father, but the latter also had no idea what this woman could be.
As a result, they do not know if this mother “ran away” with her offspring or if she explained her sad situation to the owner at the time of the events. In the second case, according to Guney Cokkaya, it is certain that his father would have let the mother and her children go without paying. On the other hand, if she had fled, “they must not have chased after her”.
This story is particularly a source of inspiration for all of us. It was shared by a friend of the manager of the Bosphore, an initiator of the collective “For later”, which distributes food to those in need. From what happened to him, Guney Cokkaya retains only one thing, it is never to judge a person too quickly.
He does not pay after eating at the restaurant
Speaking of a person who fled, a man had invited himself to a restaurant in Cannes and also did not pay his bill. The difference between him and the woman present at Bosphore is that the latter does not seem to recognize his mistake. The story took place at Café Hoche.
For dinner, the man had not done things by halves since he ordered a chicken supreme, a bottle of sparkling water, four glasses of wine, two coffees and a tiramisu. In total, he had to pay 70 euros, but did not. In his defense, he says he has no means for the expenses, but would like a mojito.
Words filled with nerve, which did not please the manager at all. Consequently, the man was arrested and taken into custody at the Cannes police station. This 22-year-old homeless man is said to be known for frivolity and was summoned to court in April 2022.
To the police, he justified himself by saying:
“Well, I have to eat”
