A server went viral explaining how to secretly pocket cash from restaurant customers, and he admitted upfront that it is technically stealing

A server on TikTok has sparked a serious conversation after explaining how to secretly steal cash from restaurant customers using a practice known as “floating drinks.” The server, Kenneth Johnson, who goes by @kennyonshift on the platform, shared the details with his 1.9 million viewers. He was upfront about the nature of the behavior, stating, “Most people don’t, most probably just get fired, but don’t push your luck.”

The process involves manipulating guest checks to take cash from unsuspecting customers. Johnson walked his audience through a scenario where a customer at table one orders a soda, a margarita, and other food items totaling $50. If that customer pays in cash, the server leaves the check open rather than closing it out immediately. When a second table orders the same items, the server moves those exact drinks from the first bill to the second one.

By removing the $5 soda and the $15 margarita from the first bill, the server can quietly pocket $20 of the cash paid by the first customer. The server then simply makes a new soda and tells the bar they are missing a margarita to fulfill the second table’s order, per Brobible. As Johnson noted, “If they [table two] pay in cash, you can keep switching it over, but somebody eventually is gonna pay in card and clear off that check and you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Servers have been caught doing this, and restaurant managers have clear ways to detect it

Johnson later addressed those who were confused by the process, saying it was probably for the best that they did not understand, because the practice is technically a crime. He was open about the risks involved, making it clear that getting caught could cost a server their job. He also advised his followers to avoid doing this to smaller businesses, suggesting that bigger establishments were somehow a more acceptable target.

The reaction online was mixed. Some current and former servers admitted to using similar tactics in the past, while others questioned whether the whole effort was even worth it.  In other restaurant news, a customer’s visit to a Beverly Hills restaurant turning into a safety hazard recently went viral on social media as well.

One commenter wrote, “people may or may not have done this with unlimited soup salad breadsticks tickets paid in cash at OG…,” suggesting that variations of this trick are more common in the industry than most customers would expect. Another user mentioned that they thought they had invented the trick back in 2006, which points to how long this practice may have been going on in restaurants.

Not everyone was impressed, though. One person, “that felt like math.” Another wrote, “That’s a lot of work… I’ll continue to be honest.” Dishonest behavior at restaurants is not always limited to staff, as one establishment recently made headlines for publicly shaming a customer who tried dodging his bill.

Restaurant management does have clear ways to detect this kind of activity. According to a post on Restaurant Systems Pro, the point-of-sale system acts as a theft identifier for managers who know what to look for. Managers are encouraged to run transfer reports in the back office, which allow them to see exactly who transferred items between tickets and when those transfers took place.

The site notes, “Management can easily decipher the transfers from the bar to a server for guests who were waiting at the bar for their table from the ones that are clearly theft.” This makes it relatively straightforward for an attentive manager to spot unusual patterns and trace them back to a specific employee.