Ever Lose Something At A Restaurant? Here’s Where It Actually Ends Up

Every restaurant I ever worked in had a lost and found, whether it was a plastic milk crate stored under the bar or a cardboard box in the manager’s office. It was never very secure or anything close to being an official lost and found department, but it was there. It was just boxes full of random scarves, sunglasses, readers, and children’s toys, long forgotten. Anything of value like a phone, wallet, or credit card was sent to the manager’s office and safeguarded in the desk. A drawer is about as close to Fort Knox as it ever got.

If you’ve ever left something at a restaurantyou might wonder what happens to it after it’s been abandoned.

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Make the chase worth my while

When a customer leaves something at their table, whoever finds it has to decide whether or not it’s worth chasing them down to return it. Honestly, it might come down to the gratuity. If I saw someone had left their sunglasses on the table, but also noticed they’d only left a 5% tip, you can be sure I wasn’t going to run down 49th Street to try to catch them. Into the box they went.

Credit cards are a cut-up

If a customer leaves a credit card, that immediately gets turned over to the manager. It will sit in the desk waiting until someone inquires about it and after 30 days, someone might find the fortitude to cut it up and throw it away. I had a customer leave a credit card once. I knew they lived in the neighborhood, so trying to be helpful, I called the credit card company and asked if they could call the customer and ask them to come back to the restaurant. “Thank you for alerting us to this situation. We will cancel the card for their protection,” they said.

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“No, no,” I protested. “If you could just call them, they could come back right now to pick it up. I have it!” My plea was ignored and they canceled the card anyway. That was a super fun conversation to have with the customer the next day when they came back to see if they had left it there.

Left your phone? I’ll see you soon

Phones that are left behind don’t remain lost for very long. Most of us are so accustomed to having them connected to our palms that we realize we’re phoneless two minutes after we step out of the restaurant. People always come back for their cell phones. Reading glasses are another story. Hardly anyone ever comes back for those because most people probably have spares and don’t even realize they’ve lost one. If you are ever in a restaurant and need a pair of reading glasses to see the tiny font on a menu, ask your server. I can guarantee there is an extra pair of readers somewhere in that restaurant you can borrow.

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Have fun fishing for that retainer

People leave behind all sorts of things. I was working in a very busy restaurant in a major hotel chain when someone came in two hours after the lunch rush to tell us they had left their retainer wrapped in a paper napkin on the table. They wanted to know if it had been turned into the lost and found. I told them that if it was wrapped in a paper napkin, it had surely been unknowingly thrown away. It could already be on its way to a Staten Island landfill. It definitely did not find its way to the lost and found and even if it had been left on the table in plain sight, I’m not sure anyone would have been willing to do anything with it other than scrape it into a bus tub.

The woman seemed genuinely surprised that I wasn’t willing to scour the 10 or 12 different trash cans it could have gone into.

Another time, one of my customers left behind a cane that seemed completely necessary when she walked into the restaurant. It wasn’t until 10 minutes after she had left that I spotted it, leaning up against the wall. “How did she get home?” I wondered. She never came back for it, so in my mind, the wonderful service I gave to her literally healed her.

Your best bet? Pick up the phone — if you still have yours

If you ever leave something in a restaurant, give the restaurant a call. Chances are your scarf is in a box where it is likely to remain in perpetuity because no one who works in a restaurant has any interest in ever taking all of that stuff to a donation center. Your scarf is there along with five pairs of reading glasses, a few credit cards, and a lonely stuffed animal that some kid once desperately loved.

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