What Gets Stolen From Restaurants? Everything

Since time immemorial, silverware has found a way to walk out of dining rooms. But the golden age of modern restaurant theft occurred in the early 2000s. That’s when, as chefs became celebrities and dining out became high theater, well-designed restaurants turned regular customers into cunning thieves. In a story on the subject in 2002, the New York Times highlighted several items that had been stolen from notable restaurants: a $1,200 silver Champagne bucket from Locke-Ober in Boston and a $1,000 fish-shaped bamboo lamp from Dahlia Lounge in Seattle, among others. At New York’s Eleven Madison Park, someone managed to remove one of the two dozen framed vintage photographs, sourced by then-owner Danny Meyer, from the dining room wall out in the open; its value was about $1,500.

Restaurant thieves beware: Anything that costs from $1,000 to $3,000 counts as grand larceny. And often the staff is aware that something on your table is missing. “A lot of the time, you know people are stealing,” says Robert Bohr, partner at New York’s Charlie Bird and Pasquale Jones. “You have to decide how big you are going to make it.”