What people really steal from hotels and restaurants – and how some businesses turn that theft to their advantage
- Hotels have always had toiletries and towels stolen, and bars and restaurants lose glasses and cutlery, but many thieves don’t stop at that
- Some hotels furnish their rooms with quirky items that they know their guests will not be able to resist, to get some free publicity
When New York bar owners attempted to be eco-friendly by replacing plastic straws, they faced an unexpected consequence – customers kept stealing the metal replacements.
Bar owners were not happy about the cost and inconvenience caused, according to media reports, but they are far from being alone in having their property pinched. Ask any hotelier. There again, one person’s theft is another person’s marketing opportunity, as the late design guru and restaurateur Terence Conran proved.
Speaking in November, Sebastian Conran revealed that his father, who died in September, had had a plan when it came to his Quaglino’s restaurant in London. “I designed the ashtrays and when he was briefing me he said, ‘These will get stolen and act as promotional items,’” Conran told the Break Out Culture podcast.
Sure enough, the metallic Q-shaped ashtrays became known as the most stolen item in London. “Over 10 years, we got through 20,000 of them,” Conran said.
In a further twist, the Terence Conran-founded Design Museum in London is currently appealing for diners who “accidentally” took ashtrays from any of the Conran restaurants to donate them to an upcoming exhibition.
