Restaurants use social media to fight crimeRestaurants use social media to fight crime

Social media isn’t just for restaurant marketing, customer relations and employee recruitment anymore. It’s also apparently a crime-fighting tool.

This week, Cleveland restaurateurs put a quick end to a series of big-ticket dine-and-dash incidents by stopping one of the two suspects in their tracks after they were identified in Facebook posts.

At least six restaurants in the downtown Cleveland area had reported a series of dine-and-dash incidents that began on June 18, with a walked $200 tab at Bar Cento, and spread over the next day to Crop Bistro & Bar.

Steve Schimoler, chef and owner of Crop, posted the suspect’s name and photo on his personal Facebook page.

"It worked instantly because the word got around quickly," Schimoler told local television station WKYC.

Schimoler had surveillance video of the suspects ringing up a $160 tab at the bar before they left.

"Top-shelf champagne, foie gras, short ribs," Schimoler said. "All in, like they are really super foodies. Said they were going to have a cigarette. They take off. We immediately connected the dots. We looked at both videos, immediately identified these two brothers."

The next day, three more restaurants — Blue Point, Butcher and the Brewer, and RED — were hit by the suspects matching the descriptions in earlier incidents.

By Friday, word had spread to many area restaurants.

At lunchtime, David Flowers, general manger at Johnny's restaurant, saw one of the suspects in his restaurants.

"Sure enough, when he saw an opportunity, he tried to bolt for the door,” Flowers said. “He said he didn't have any money, he was going to meet his aunt and he'd be back later. "

Schimoler arrived at Johnny's in time to snap this now heavily shared picture on Facebook of Flowers’ foot strategically holding down the suspect.

Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
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