I brought this in with me
Waiter: ‘Sir, you are taking one of our tables with you.’
Me: ‘No I’m not.’
W: ‘I can see it right there.’
M: ‘Oh, this? I brought it in with me.’
At D’Artagnan in Midtown, Ariane Daguin, an owner, trained employees to count every item on the table and be sure it all comes back, particularly the $32 Laguiole steak knives. “Those were easy to take because you could fold them,” she said.
One night a waiter spotted a man putting one in his napkin. “So what I did was, I put it on the bill,” Ms. Daguin said. “And when they saw the bill, they decided to return the knife. That’s how we dealt with it.”