Dirty Dinner Plate

Woman Refuses to Pay Restaurant Bill, Insists Jesus Will Pick Up the Tab

Dirty Dinner Plate
Frédérique Voisin-Demery is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Restaurant presses charges against woman who, claiming that Jesus would take care of it, refused to pay her check.

Bennett’s Calabash Seafood Buffet Restaurant in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina had to press fraud charges against one of their patrons when she refused to pay her bill. The 51-year-old woman, April Lee Yates, arrived around 5 PM Sunday, July 12, to order her dinner. Her bill came out to a total of $26. When the bill finally arrived, she flat out refused to pay for it because “someone” would be covering her tab. After several hours, during which Yates caused commotion and disruption among the other guests of the restaurant, police were called. She told the Myrtle Beach police that the ‘someone’ she was talking about was “Jesus”. In addition, she conceded that she knew she didn’t have the money to cover the dinner when she arrived at the restaurant.

The woman was arrested that night, and taken into custody at Horry County, South Carolina. She is being charged for fraud against the restaurant. No bond has been set for Yates. Many suspect that she was on drugs or had been drinking alcohol, though the police have not confirmed if this is the case or not.

She isn’t the first one to claim this, either

In 2014, an Oklahoma woman made similar claims. She arrived at a Mexican restaurant with no cash on her. She sat down, ordered her dinner and several drinks. Kristi Rhines, of Lawton Oklahoma, told the managers that her husband would be “back soon to settle her tab”. When they pressed for more information, she admitted that she is “legally married to Jesus Christ”, adding that he would be returning shortly. She said that he would be capable of providing payment in the form of US currency to cover her bill. The managers, however, didn’t find it agreeable to their business and pressed charges against her for fraud. 

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