Sweet Zoey mediterranean restaurant in Casper is known for its baklava and kebabs.
Four customers ordered those items and more during a lunch hour last May, running up quite the tab – then quietly running out the door.
“They ate everything, appetizers, drinks, sweets, mains, everything,” said owner Zoey Aldahash.
“Then the four of them stood up in the same moment together, they walked to the door, and once they opened the door, they ran to the car — they were running," she added.
It was not her first experience with unpaying customers at this restaurant in the city’s Westridge neighborhood.
Unlike before, however, this time she chose not to involve the police. She looked to social media instead.
From the business’s security cameras, Aldahash posted an image of the alleged offenders to the restaurant’s Facebook page and asked the community for help identifying them.
Locals piled into the comments with a stone soup of reaction.
“How disgusting! Make sure their photos are plastered everywhere so they can be banned from everywhere. People like them should never be allowed anywhere 😡,” said one user.
Another customer was so disheartened she offered to help cover the loss.
“If they dont come fwd I can swing in 65$ of the bill. I know it's not all of it but it's half,” the person said.
The responses show how neighborhood restaurants can feel like a natural extension of a community itself. In the case of Sweet Zoey, it's a reputation earned from years of hard work.
Brand Built On Baklava
Aldahash, an Iraqi native with deep brown eyes and coffee-colored skin, worked as an architectural engineer before pivoting to a career of passion.
She began selling small batches of baklava at the farmers market. Small batches turned to big batches that turned to additional offerings like hummus and specialty bread. Each week, demand rose.
“It was selling out every time and I had people asking me to make more and more and more,” she said, “I reached a point where I couldn’t do it from my home anymore.”
She moved to a commercial kitchen, then into a bigger space at southside shopping center, and eventually in 2022 into the full-service restaurant on CY Avenue where the business is today.
Despite a loyal customer base, not all support how Aldahash handled the dine-and-dash incident.
Why Not Call Police?
In the image she posted online, commenters noted that the group resembled a family of four with two teenage children.
Their presumed youth was an issue for many.
“Advice from a former manager and business owner, Call the police and report instead of posting on Facebook, especially with children in the photo,” one person wrote.
That opinion was shared by many commenters. It’s also shared by the Casper Police Department (CPD).
Rebekah Ladd, public information officer for CPD, told Cowboy State Daily social media will often bring useful information to investigators, but it can also result in undue accusations, misidentification or harassment, which raises additional concerns if juveniles are involved.
“Posting (images) publicly is typically not the most appropriate tactic at the beginning of a dine-and-dash investigation,” Ladd said.
“Businesses should be especially cautious when juveniles may be involved … particularly when the full circumstances are not known.”
Circumstances Are Clear
To the mind of Zoey Aldahash, however, the circumstances are clear enough.
“These people came here and they intended to steal,” she said.
Pour Decisions Bar and Grill in Cheyenne also looked first to social media for help identifying a man who fed his family of four and left without paying in November 2025.
Although in this instance, the images were cropped to reveal only the group’s patriarch, and the bar owner expressed a hope to resolve the issue amicably without involving authorities.
Locals expressed a range of feelings, but similar to Sweet Zoey, the majority opinion here was summed up best by the commenter who wrote, “Put this on Cheyenne Community Connection … really call him out.”
Aldahash chose not to involve police in May because she still has a sour taste from the last time she looked to CPD for help.
In 2024, a group of five ordered multiple entrees each and then left without paying, she said. After filing an initial report, investigators did not respond to her requests for updates and nothing became of the case, she said.
“In my previous experience, calling the police didn't work. There was no help, so I didn't contact the police the second time,” she said.
Is Dine-And-Dash Common?
Dine and dash incidents are categorized in police reports as crimes of “False Pretenses/Fraud,” which can include things like a person who takes a taxi ride and then leaves without paying the fare, Ladd explained.
In 2025, CPD tallied 626 cases of false pretenses and fraud, up 18% from the 531 cases reported in 2024, and up from 404 cases in 2023, according to public records.
However, dine-and-dash theft accounts for only a fraction of the department’s false pretense reports, totaling between 20-30 per year, according to Ladd.
“(Dine-and-dash) reports are not especially common in Casper,” Ladd said.
“CPD staff estimate the department receives roughly a couple of ‘dine-and-dash’ reports per month on average.”
Yet there’s reason to believe the problem is underreported.
They Even Steal The Menus
At Little Shop of Burgers, a horror-themed restaurant with campy decor in north Casper, owner Sarah Woodward did not involve the police the first time she had dine-and-dash customers.
Nor did she involve them the second time. Nor the time after that.
“I just feel like the police have better things to do,” she said. “I also wonder, what could they even do?”
Officers will interview staff, review receipts and surveillance video before making a determination about intent and whether probable cause exists, according to Ladd.
In addition to three instances of theft of services, Woodward might also have filed multiple reports of theft of merchandise; for reasons she’s hard pressed to understand, customers often make off with the restaurant’s dolls and laminate menus.
“In February, we got 55 new menus. Right now we’re down to 15,” said Woodward. “I don’t even get how they’d smuggle them out. Maybe they shove them under their skirts.”
Instead of calling police, she calls on staff to boost vigilance.
“We’ve just tried to keep a closer eye on things,” she said, with a shrug of resignation.
Elsewhere in Natrona County, restaurant managers have police on speed dial.
An Old Lady On Her Walker
At the Texas Roadhouse in Evansville, manager Juan Soto said he sees about five dine-and-dash incidents per year.
The most recent example stands out. It was a rowdy table in June, and Soto was suspicious from the start.
“They're a real rowdy bunch. They came in really late at night, and I kind of knew that the table was going to be some sort of an issue,” Soto said, explaining he’s developed an intuition after 25 years in the industry.
His sense of them was a bull’s-eye.
The table’s bill soared above $200, but when it was time to settle up, they conspicuously headed outside at once. Sotto stopped them at the door and asked to put a card on file.
After an awkward back and forth, one of them finally agreed to pick up the bill. The problem was he didn’t have any money.
“They all left except for one dude, but this dude tried three different credit cards and he did not have any money in his account,” he said, describing the group demographically as “in their mid-40s.”
The man said he’d return with payment the following day; Soto said no. In the end, the man’s mother came to the restaurant to bail him out.
“It was sad. The old lady had to get out on her oxygen and her walker to come in here and pay their bill,” he said.
Unlike Aldahash and Woodward, Soto has no reservations about involving the police.
“In Evansville, the police take really good care of me because I've built this relationship with them,” he said, explaining that he and police approach dine-and-dash incidents with the same overall assumption.
“People are generally good people. It's just those few cases you get in this industry, and you need to hold people accountable.”
‘Cry Or Smile’
At Sweet Zoey, accountability has not yet arrived, and she’s left suspended between frustration, gratitude, and a kind of weary bemusement.
“You come in and order this much, and just leave without paying?” she said. “Who are these people?”
But she’s quick to pivot to the people who do show up for her: the regulars who offer to cover strangers’ bills, the customers who fill her dining room and comment with affection on the restaurant’s socials.
“Sometimes it’s like you don’t know if you want to cry or smile,” she said.
Zakary Sonntag can be reached at zakary@cowboystatedaily.com.
