Restaurants
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Friends with the Staff
If you have either a decent personality or passable acting skills, you can sometimes get free food by befriending the staff at hip restaurants.
Hone your skills at identifying compassionate places. Generally, but not exclusively, such establishments tend to have mismatched decor (obtained from thrift stores if not for free). In addition, the employees are usually young and similarly mismatched, the music comes from an actual stereo, and the place probably doesn't accept credit cards. If there is an older woman who calls everyone "honey" like she really means it, your odds of getting free stuff increase exponentially.
Avoid larger chain restaurants, although if you're exceptionally charismatic you might be able to pull it off there as well. Sometimes you will have success in places where the staff looks bored or angry, although they are probably under the thumb of an oppressive and paranoid management that keeps tight track of supplies.
Start by hanging out over a cup of coffee or something similarly cheap. Act friendly and have a few interesting stories ready. Don't overdo the poor bit. Most Amerikans are frightened by the unfortunate (when will they have been charitable enough?).
Chat with your wait-person, take the food to-go if this will reduce the work of the waiter, and maybe even jot a friendly note on a clean napkin when you leave. Become friends with the staff and let them in on a few travel stories (remember Security Culture). If they think of you as a friend (and not simply another tip), they might want to draw you back for more tales of the road.
Don't ask for stuff up-front unless you are just blowing through. If you build a little camaraderie with any particular staff members, you can offer little conversational tidbits about your exciting and interesting travels. However, asking outright for freebies is generally an alienating move until you have built a rapport. You may find that your coffee is left off the bill, or you are afforded a free buffet, or even that another customer's unwanted entree finds its way to your table.
ALWAYS make sure to tip as extravagantly as possible for such favors to let the staff know that you are sharing what wealth you do have.
Once you've cultivated a relationship with a restaurant, you might even be able to bargain leftovers if you hang around at closing time. People can be surprisingly compassionate and empathetic if they identify with you or want to live vicariously through you.
In our sexist society, you will find that a woman has a better chance to get free stuff with a male waiter, especially with a slightly cute, shy approach, while still letting him know you are running tight and relying on his compassion. Males usually also have more success with males if they can become interesting and respected; a male appealing to another male's compassion is more likely to elicit a reaction of disgust than sympathy.
Waitresses are wise to these games and see a scam better since playing off of their ego is less effective. 18 to 21 year old wait staff are the easiest to get free food from, since they aren't jaded and don't really care if they end up getting canned.
If you live in a college town, are of (or can pass as) the appropriate age, and have enough guile, a classic strategy is to claim membership with a campus environmental club and ask for leftovers. Knowing the organization's appropriate name is essential, and learning a bit about current officers or projects can lend extra credibility. Wear something about Darfur or Fair Trade to seal the deal. You can make off with enough food to feed you and another person for a week. If you are extraordinarily bold, just say you collect for the homeless. That way you don't have to fudge a story. Another angle you might try is that you are trying to feed pets. This avoids fear of litigation over spoiled food.
The Walk-out
A classic is the walk-out. A friend and I got away with this a number of times by pretending to be a couple (a male-and-female duo works best for this kind of scam, but if you are two of the same gender, it might work to your advantage to pretend that you are siblings). We dressed slightly eccentrically but not outrageously, so the staff would remember the clothes and not our faces. We spent our dinner discussing literature, philosophy, and the sadness of our society. I had a notebook and pen, and he smoked cigarettes. The effect we were aiming for was to look like off-the-wall artist-activist types.
At the end of the meal, we each "got distracted" by something. He went to the bathroom while I wandered about as if in thought. Then, I went outside. He followed several minutes later, and we walked away totally free. Had someone stopped us, I would have remarked that I thought he was going to pay, and he would have said that he thought I'd already paid. Make sure to leave a tip, though. Don't dine and ditch unless you have no other choice; it would be a bad thing to be hauled in and charged with extra crimes to get you off of the street. Only attempt this ruse out of town, because a waiter might remember "those bastards that ran off without paying."
Another great scam involves a female accomplice and an empty purse, which you can get on the cheap for a buck or two at a thrift store. Since most places in Amerika have already banned public smoking, an after meal cigarette can be a great way to scare up a free meal. while the waiter is making his rounds to another table near yours, tell him you're going out to have a smoke. It helps if he's got his hands full on the way to another customer as he will be focused on what he's in the middle of doing at the time. Leave the empty purse on the table and exit the restaurant, light up your cigarette and enjoy the satisfaction of a free meal. Just make sure to leave the poor shmuck a decent tip.
A good related trick to the walk-out, is the walk-in. This will work in most buffets, as you pay for a tray and not a plate. The trick works best if you are with a group of people or if you say you are meeting up with someone if asked. Simply walk past the register, maybe go into the bathroom if you see that the cashier saw you, wait a few minutes, and grab a plate. A lot of places give cups up front where you have to pay, but to avoid attention, bring your own, just be smart with it. While you have an unlimited source of food in front of you, you might as well stock up with plastic bags or something of that nature, again, be smart, this trick is a lot better if you have access to refrigeration. If you need a paper cup, go to another restaurant, and say you just want a few cups for a 2-liter bottle of soda in your car. Get creative, the cup trick works well at smaller places, and doesn't work well at fast food places, foreign restaurants are perfect.
Pizza
Call up the local Pizza Hut and order whatever sort of pizza you like and be sure to prepay via credit card. Then, when the pizza arrives, call the resturaunt back and say they gave you the wrong one. Pizza Hut is obligated to give you the pizza for free, even if they can prove that you're wrong. This is an almost foolproof way to get a free pizza, however you shouldn't do it too often with a single place or they'll refuse to serve you.
If the pizza place you are ordering from has a "30 Minutes or Free" type of deals, call from a cell phone, and try to find an address similar to yours that could be mistaken for your address. If you live on 105 Main Street, maybe try 109 Main Street, or 105 Main Road. Keep in mind, they GPS it as you say it, so you want it to be a valid address so they will drive to the wrong house. Call in an hour later and say you have been waiting patiently for your pizza and it hasn't arrived yet, if they say you gave the wrong house, ask the address and correct them.
Also, be sure to tip the delivery driver if you try to pull either of these. They'll be screwed out of the meager compensation they get for gas and wear and tear on their vehicles by the greedy corporate office, so they really need the tip for this one.
Original Text
In a country such as Amerika, there is bound to be a hell-of-a-lot food lying around just waiting to be ripped off. If you want to live high off the hog without having to do the dishes, restaurants are easy pickings. In general, many of these targets are easier marks if you are wearing the correct uniform. You should always have one suit or fashionable dress outfit hanging in the closet for the proper heists. Specialized uniforms, such as nun and priest garb, can be most helpful. Check out your local uniform store for a wide range of clothes that will get you in, and especially out, of all kinds of stores. Every movement organization should have a prop and costume department.
In every major city there are usually bars that cater to the New Generation type riffraff, trying to hustle their way up the escalator of Big Business. Many of these bars have a buffet or hors-d'oeuvres served free as a come-on to drink more mindless booze. Take a half-empty glass from a table and use it as a prop to ward off the anxious waitress. Walk around sampling the free food until you've had enough. Often, there are five or six such bars in close proximity, so moving around can produce a delightful "street smorgasbord." Dinner usually begins at 5:00 PM.
If you are really hungry, you can go into a self-service cafeteria and finish the meal of someone who left a lot on the plate. Self-service restaurants are usually good places to cop things like mustard, ketchup, salt, sugar, toilet paper, silverware and cups for home use. Bring an empty school bag and load up after you've cased the joint. Also, if you can stomach the food, you can use slugs at the automat. Finishing leftovers can be worked in even the fanciest of restaurants. When you are seated at a place where the dishes still remain, chow-down real quick. Then after the waitress hands you the menu, say you have to meet someone outside first, and leave.
There are still some places where you can get all you can eat for a fixed price. The best of these places are in Las Vegas. Sew a plastic bag onto your tee-shirt or belt and wear a loose-fitting jacket or coat to cover any noticeable bulge. Fried chicken is the best and the easiest to pocket, or should we say bag. Another trick is to pour your second free cup of hot coffee into the plastic bag sewed inside your pocket and take it with you.
At large take-out stands you can say you or your brother just picked up an order of fifteen hamburgers or a bucket of chicken, and got shorted. We have never seen or heard of anybody getting turned down using this method. If you want to get into a grand food heist from take-out stands, you can work the following nervy bit: from a pay phone, place an order from a large delivery restaurant. Have the order sent to a nearby apartment house. Wait a few minutes in the booth after you've hung up, as they sometimes call back to confirm the order. When the delivery man goes into the apartment house to deliver the order, you can swipe the remaining orders that are still in his truck.
In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate. Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible inconvenience.
In restaurants where you pay at the door just before leaving, there are a number of free-loading tricks that can be utilized. After you've eaten a full meal and gotten the check, go into the restroom. When you come out go to the counter or another section of the restaurant and order coffee and pie. Now you have two bills. Simply pay the cheaper one when you leave the place. This can be worked with a friend in the following way. Sit next to each other at the counter. He should order a big meal and you a cup of coffee. Pretend you don't know each other. When he leaves, he takes your check and leaves the one for the large meal on the counter. After he has paid the cashier and left the restaurant, you pick up the large check, and then go into the astonishment routine, complaining that somebody took the wrong check. You end up only paying for your coffee. Later, meet your partner and reverse the roles in another place.
In all these methods, you should leave a good tip for the waiter or waitress, especially with the roach-in-the-plate gambit. You should try to avoid getting the employees in trouble or screwing them out of a tip.
One fantastic method of not only getting free food but getting the best available is the following technique that can be used in metropolitan areas. Look in a large magazine shop for gourmet digests and tourist manuals. Swipe one or two and copy down a good name from the masthead inside the cover. Making up a name can also work. Next invest $5.00 to print business cards with the name of the magazine and the new "associate editor." Call or simply drop into a fancy restaurant, show a copy of the magazine and present the manager with your card. They will insist that the meal be on the house.
Great places to get fantastic meals are weddings, bar-mitzvahs, testimonials and the like. The newspaper society sections have lists of weddings and locations. If your city has a large Jewish population, subscribe to the newspaper that services the Jewish community. There are extensive lists in these papers of family occasions where tons of good food is served. Show up at the back of the synagogue a few hours after the affair has begun with a story of how you'd like to bring some leftovers of "good Jewish food" back to your fraternity or sorority. If you want to get the food served to you out front, you naturally have to disguise yourself to look straight. Remarks such as, "I'm Marvin's cousin," or learning the bride's name, "Gee, Dorothy looks marvelous" are great. Lines like "Betty doesn't look pregnant" are frowned upon. A man and woman team can work this free-load much better than a single person as they can chatter back and forth while stuffing themselves.
If you're really into a classy free meal, and you are in a city with a large harbor, check out the passenger ship section in the back pages of the newspaper. There you find the schedule of departures for ocean cruises. Most trips (these kind, anyway) begin with a fantastic bon voyage party on board ship. Just walk on a few hours before departure time and start swinging. Champagne, caviar, lobster, shrimp and more, all as free as the open seas. If you get really bombed and miss getting off, you can also wiggle a ride across the ocean. You get sent back as soon as you hit the other side, but it's a free ocean cruise. You should have a pretty good story ready to go, or you might end up rowing in the galley.
Another possibility for getting a free meal is to go down to the docks and get friendly with a sailor. He can often invite you for dinner on board ship. Foreign sailors are more than glad to meet friends and you can get great foreign dinners this way.
A note about STB
Be careful using Abby's glass in the food trick. Today with big lawsuit awards it is worthwhile for a chain restaurant or food manufacturer to be hyper-aggressive and crush anyone who might be making a false report in order to protect themselves from bad publicity and further scam lawsuits.
