[Grub Street] Once, at Zabar’s, general manager Scott Goldshine confronted a famous cookbook author who had stuffed an array of goods under her mink coat. “She was hysterical,” Goldshine says. “She ended up running out. Someone wanted to grab her, but I said, ‘Just let her go.’”
Meet the Kleptogastromaniacs, customers hooked on high-end-food theft.
Goldshine says confrontations do happen, like the time he had to face down a regular, well-liked customer — then also a well-known adviser to the Democratic Party — who always concluded his visits by slipping a pint of Häagen-Dazs under his sport coat. “I had to take him to the side and say, ‘First of all, if it comes out, it will ruin your career.’” And second of all? “I said, ‘You’re my friend, and I love you. But you can’t come in here anymore.’”
Similar: The Broke High Thief
Cookbook Author:
Democratic Party Adviser:
[Optional] If you saw someone shoplifting, would you turn them in?
