Theft Of The Week (13)

Britain is fast turning into a nation of shoplifters but even those that try to stay the right side of the law seem to think nothing of trousering a souvenir from a restaurant or a hotel as a sort of souvenir of a night out or a stay at a swanky gaff. This habit also seems to be getting out of control.

Recently, the TV celebrity chef and restaurateur, Gordon Ramsay, revealed that in one week nearly 500 maneki-neko cat figurines were stolen in one week from his new restaurant, Lucky Cat, in just one week. At £4.50 a pop that amounts to a whopping £2,000 off his bottom line.

Marking its tenth anniversary Quaglino’s in St James offered a free glass of champagne to anyone returning one of the 25,000 Q-shaped ashtrays that had “disappeared” over the previous decade. Since they took the step to sell the distinctive ashtrays as merchandise, the problem has stopped.

Bibendum in Brompton Cross loses fifteen of its Michelin Man butter dishes a week while Flat Iron reported that since their first restaurant opened more than a decade ago, 20,000 of their distinctive mini cleavers it uses upon which to place steak knives have been “accidentally removed” by diners.

Some have made a virtue out of the practice. Wahaca, the Mexican street food chain, held spoon amnesties at which their brightly coloured cutlery could be traded in for tacos while the Ivy restaurant print “Stolen from The Ivy” on the bottom of their chopstick holders.

For the struggling hospitality sector, this trend is an unwelcome cost and thinking outside of the box might just help to put a stop to it. We will see.