The owners of a Greater Manchester Indian restaurant have been left reeling as they say they had to foot the bill of a group of new customers who decided to dine-and-dash
Raman Kaur and Narinder Singh Athwa, who both run the much-loved Sai Surbhi restaurant in Urmston, Greater Manchester, have claimed two families failed to pay for their meals.
According to them, two groups arrived on August 30, a mere 15 minutes after making their booking, and went on to tuck into a wide variety of curries, sides and children’s meals. When they reached the end of their meal, instead of paying for their bill, worth £190.43, the women and children in the group allegedly fled the restaurant, leaving behind two men to settle it.
The pair claimed to have “no way of paying” and left shortly after. Raman explained the two customers promised a payment would be made by Monday, but have failed to live up to their promise. After much patience, Raman is now looking into ways of releasing the CCTV footage and contacting the police.
This has been a devastating blow for their small business, which has been a huge part of the Urmston community since it opened its doors in 2023. The same team have operated their flagship restaurant in Preston for a decade and have racked up quite the number of accolades, Manchester Evening News reports.
At the Asian Restaurant Awards they won Best Indian Restaurant of the Year in the North West, and their Urmston venue received the Best Newcomer in the North West accolade.
They took to social media to share an update: “We hate to do this, but it’s our only option at this point… Unfortunately on Saturday night we had a table of 2 families, who after eating, drinking and enjoying themselves tried 5 different cards, calling various people to transfer money, and paid £0 off a £200 bill!!
“Now we don’t want to start discriminating, as we have families from the same community who come in regularly, and we’ve never had a problem. These were new visitors who rang up to book: 4 adults + 4 children. Apart from the normal ruckus that infants can cause wanting to run around, we had no trouble from any of them.
“They praised the food, the service, the decor, everything. The only issue came at the end when the families scarpered and the two men said, ‘Sorry, we have no way of paying.’ When I requested ID, they couldn’t produce any either. No cash, nothing.
“A name and number was left with an apology and the promise to pay today after they were paid and a promise that if they didn’t pay, we could release CCTV images of them across socials.”
Raman mentioned in the post the toll this has taken on their team. It continued: “As a local family-run business and an independent, times are REALLY tough at the minute, and them not paying a 200-pound bill has a HUGE knock-on effect for our restaurant. We can’t afford this occurrence once, let alone a repeat performance. What can we do?
“And thank you to a few tables who did see the situation and shared their kind words with us. We hope you understand this was our only option to highlight this incident. That 200-pound bill would pay staff, or pay our bills, or for stock.”
The post gained a lot of attention as locals made a number of suggestions, telling them to release the CCTV footage and involve the police. One user wrote: “I would absolutely start taking card details like I do. This will ensure you have insurance!”
Another added: “Just thinking, when many of us go on holiday, the hotel asks for a credit card upfront; it may be worth doing the same.” Although, Raman says taking deposits isn’t always quite that straightforward, especially for last-minute bookings and smaller groups.
Looking back at the incident, the restaurant owner recalled: “They rang 15 minutes beforehand to say that they were coming in and requested a table of four, two adults and two kids, but there were double the amount when they turned up, and they said they wanted eight, and because it was the beginning of service, we said ok.
“With deposits it can put people off, and if someone is coming in to the restaurant in 15 minutes it’s not worth the faff – it’s the same with walk-ins, you wouldn’t ask for a deposit. We do get deposits from larger groups, but like in this case, it wasn’t possible.”
