This is the moment a man with two children did an alleged dine and dash after running up a £60 bill - leaving a café owner "disappointed and angry".<br /><br />CCTV footage shows a balding man and two youngsters - a boy, believed to be in his teens, and a girl - enjoying a meal at Café No 35 in Canterbury, Kent.<br /><br />As they come to the end of their food the man goes inside to order more - supposedly for his wife - with the kids in tow.<br /><br />But as the waitress goes to place the order video shows the trio walking out of the café quickly - allegedly without having paid.<br /><br />Owner Anna Carpenter, 55, said she is sharing the June 3 footage in a bid to identify the man - and warn other businesses in the area.<br /><br />Kent Police are probing the incident.<br /><br />Anna said: "I feel disappointed and angry about what happened - and I feel sorry for my staff who were stressed and shaken up.<br /><br />"It's just upsetting that someone would take advantage like this, especially because we're an independent café. <br /><br />"You know, this is our money, our passion, our time... and our livelihood. <br /><br />"And we only use the services and products of other independent businesses - that's our ethos. So it harms us a lot of people. <br /><br />"Especially in the current economic climate, it's so important to keep independent places alive. <br /><br />"And I wouldn't want this to happen to a chain either, of course - but these kind of things hit us harder." <br /><br />Anna says the group ordered two fried breakfasts, three portions of chips, five coca colas, and a milkshake - with the bill coming to around £60. <br /><br />But despite placing another order after finishing the first lot, they disappeared, she claims.<br /><br />Anna said: "I had two young girls working on that day and we were very busy. <br /><br />"The group kept trying to get my waitress's attention, and when she went out to see them, they would order more food. <br /><br />"My waitress said she started to feel uneasy because the man kept peering through the window looking inside the café. <br /><br />"He did it so often that she did feel that something wasn’t quite right and she certainly felt uncomfortable.<br /><br />"When I watched the CCTV back, it did look really strange that he spent so much time looking through the window.<br /><br />"Everything my waitress had told me was there on the CCTV. They walked out very quickly and certainly left at pace.<br /><br />"It’s just one of those things and there are people out there who do this sort of thing all the time."<br /><br />Anna said the alleged dine and dash is another blow for the business in an already-difficult economic climate.<br /><br />She said: "So many venues have closed across the country and it is quite frightening the impact that all of these issues, certainly since the pandemic, have had on the industry.<br /><br />“We’re just doing the best we can to stay in business so for somebody to steal from us hurts and affects all of the staff."<br /><br />Anna, who opened the business three-and-a-half years ago, shared a CCTV image on Facebook and is urging anyone who knows the man and two children to get in touch.
