Thai diner food fight: Apology served amid delivery rider accusations

A Thai restaurant apologised after accusing food delivery riders of eating customers’ food before delivering it. Netizens believed the issue was made up to promote the restaurant.

The restaurant, Monster by Tong, took to Facebook yesterday, May 14, alleging that a driver had consumed a portion of a customer’s grilled meat and rice, providing a picture as evidence.

“Rider sneaks to eat our food before delivering it to a customer. This is not the first time. What we should do? Check out this picture.”

The picture showed the grilled meat and rice that the restaurant claimed the rider ate and left in the package. The restaurant said the picture was from a good and regular customer.

Netizens questioned the authenticity of the accusation, asking the restaurant to show the amount of food before delivery for comparison. Others, especially, food delivery riders, argued that riders do not have time to eat customers’ food due to their workload.

Some netizens even accused the restaurant of making the story up to advertise the restaurant for advertisement. However, the response from netizens did not go as well as the restaurant expected.

One netizen compared the portion of the dish with the picture of a restaurant’s review section and found that the portion was similar but the customer might be misunderstood by the advertising picture of the restaurant.

Numerous food delivery riders expressed their anger over the restaurant’s post and inundated the comment section, vehemently denying any intention of consuming customers’ food. They felt deeply offended by the post and demanded that the restaurant provide a more detailed clarification of the issue.

The restaurant later deleted its post and issued an apology on its Facebook page today, May 15. The restaurant insisted that it did not make up the story to promote the restaurant and food.

In the apology, the restaurant stated that they already spoken with the customer and resolved the issue but did not provide any details publicly. The restaurant also apologised to all delivery riders affected by the post and promised to prevent similar issues in the future.

Netizens, however, remained unsatisfied with the restaurant’s response and demanded more transparency regarding the details of the discussion with the customer.