Restaurant has ingenious way of dealing with dine-and-dash customer after they left $1,000 note

A restaurant had an ingenious way of dealing with a dine and dasher after a guest left without paying.

Michael's Bar and Grill in Manchester, Missouri, is a family-owned restaurant that cooks up classics from Greek cuisine.

But staff at the restaurant were left stunned when a customer 'paid' by leaving a $1,000 bill on his table and legging it before they could confront him.

Currently the largest bill which is issued in the US is the $100 bill, and while there are historical larger bills going all the way up to $100,000, needless to say this $1,000 bill was not genuine but a forgery.

The restaurant posted about the incident online (Facebook/Michael's Bar and Grill)

First Alert 4 told how the guest had asked if the restaurant had change for a $100 bill, the largest denomination, and staff went to go and source some change for the $40 bill.

But rather than waiting for the staff to return with the change, the guest instead left the fake $1,000 bill on the table and left the restaurant in a 'dine and dash' - where a customer eats at a restaurant and leaves without paying.

The restaurant has spoken out since the incident, saying that dine and dash incidents are becoming increasingly prevalent.

Kristina Moriarty works at Michael’s Bar and Grill, and said: “Unfortunately, it’s happened quite a few times lately."

She was joined by Dawn Lamb, who has worked as a bartender at the restaurant for 32 years.

“We work for our tips, and this affects us. The profit margins are too small for this to keep happening,” Lamb said.

Unfortunately the incident combined with the increasing prevalence of dine and dash led to the restaurant having to take extreme measures.

Michael's Bar and Grill in Manchester, Missouri (Google Maps)

Lab said: “Here’s the thing, if you do this, we are going to expose you, and we’re going to make it aware. So we again can prevent this from happening."

The restaurant went on to invest in extra cameras and security measures, including licence plate readers and facial recognition.

Moriarty said: “We have cameras everywhere. We have license plate readers, we have facial recognition that we had to invest in because unfortunately, these things keep happening to small businesses around here."

The restaurant also took to social media, where they posted about the customer who had left without paying.

Then, quite possibly after seeing the post that they had made about him, he returned a few days later and apologised for his actions, including paying his $40 bill and leaving a tip.

Justice served!