Well-dressed dine-and-dasher stuffs huge porterhouse steak in napkin, walks out of restaurant

A California restaurant owner is searching for a well-dressed dine-and-dasher after a man was caught on video wrapping up a porterhouse steak in a linen napkin and bolting without paying.

Staff at the House of Beef in Oakdale are asking the public to help identify a man who allegedly stole a $56 steak he didn’t pay for.

Video from inside the restaurant shows the man wearing a suit, sans tie, sitting alone at a table with a pint of beer, lobster tail, a tasty looking piece of meat with all the fixings on a plate in front of him.

The man is seen eating some of the grub before picking up the steak, without using a utensil, and letting the juices roll off the meat.

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“What type of person will take a steak and watch the juice drip off and then wrap it in a linen napkin?” restaurant head server Denise Loya told KTXL News. “It’s just highly unusual.”

Loya told the news station the man came into the restaurant late Tuesday afternoon and asked for a table for four, saying he was expecting to meet with some friends. Loya said the man was shifty-looking from the get-go.

“Definitely a used car salesman or a bad real estate agent. Slimeball,” Loya said.

Video shows the non-customer looking around the dining room, eyeing the surveillance cameras.

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“Keep your eyes on this person, because his eyes, you can see them. They’re, you know – he’s watching,” owner Steve Medlen told KTXL News.

The man proceeds to use a linen napkin from a breadbasket to wrap up the steak before walking out the front door.

“He’s unethical,” the owner said.

Loya said if the man was in a rough position, and was truly starving, the folks at the restaurant would have helped the guy out.

“We always help people,” Loya said. “When they come in off the streets, we will buy them a bowl of soup, or a sandwich.”

The owner filed a police report, but the dine-and-dasher’s identity is still unknown.