A New York City man who accused a high-end Manhattan steakhouse’s staff of eating half of his friend’s birthday cake has apologized after learning the truth – but his followers are still unconvinced.
The influencer and chef, Ryan Nordheimer, shared a beautiful 15-layer ‘ultimate-funfetti’ cake with his followers that he made for his friend’s birthday.
Nordheimer documented the process of making the cake, which took an arduous five or six hours to make and he estimated to be worth ‘hundreds’ of dollars.
‘This was a massive cake, at least twice the size of my head,’ he said.
He said they went to a restaurant where he handed the cake to the hostess until it was time to sing Happy Birthday and blow the candles out.
‘I had actually called the restaurant ahead of time to ask if I could do the cake cutting, but they said that was a safety hazard,’ he said.
The cake was then taken away to be sliced and brought the slices back out for everyone at the table.
He estimated the slices to be only a ‘few millimeters’ wide, he said: ‘Doing a rough estimation, there were 12 of us at the dinner. If we’re each served a slice about this size or maybe it’s a little bigger, that’s gonna be about half of that massive cake.’
‘Definitely not all the cake was served to us,’ he added.
However, when he asked for the rest of the cake, he was told there was none left.
‘So the only explanation is that this high-end New York City Midtown steakhouse took the cake, cut all of us meager slices and have just eaten the rest for themselves,’ he claimed.
While he was sympathetic, saying they ‘deserve maybe a little sweet treat at the end of their night’, but said the cake was his hard work and a gift for his friend so the situation felt ‘disappointing’.
Many commenters on his video in which he shared the story felt he should confront the restaurant and found the situation ‘insane’.
The restaurant was never named by Nordheimer, but his followers proved to be keen detectives and believed to have found the restaurant in question.
Beliefs began circling the restaurant to be Quality Meats, a popular steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan, which denied the TikToker’s claims.
A representative for Quality Meats, however, told Today: ‘We have referenced security footage of the kitchen that evening, and can ensure that our staff did not eat any of the birthday cake.’
They added that the restaurant attempts to estimate the number of slices per guest, with a buffer in case any person wants more.
The restaurant did in fact have two slices left, and further stated: ‘While we acknowledge that we failed to pack up the remaining two slices, the accusations that the staff ate the cake are completely false.’
Quality Meats also stated that they reached out to Nordheimer to apologize for the ‘team’s lack of communication that evening’.
Followers, however, took it one step further and bombarded the restaurant with fake bad reviews on sites such as Yelp, Facebook, and Instagram. Some left emojis or GIFs of cake just to reinforce their points, reported Today.
Nordheimer followed up with another video, addressing what really happened.
He said he had received three different phone calls from the restaurant’s management team over two days, who told him they had looked into the matter.
The restaurant confirmed there was a portion of cake left that didn’t make it out, and Nordheimer said ‘they were super kind’ and offered him a free dinner for two as an apology.
He added: ‘There’s plenty of people at that restaurant just trying to make a living like all of us, and they’ve admitted it was a mistake, and I think we all make mistake, so I can live with that.
Nordheimer said he thinks that addressing the team in private correspondence allows you to get any issue ‘addressed more directly’ without tarnishing the business’s reputation.
Whilst he appreciated his follower’s loyalty and intentions, he said he believed some commenters went too far.
He said: ‘I think let’s take a chill pill on all of the Instagram comments on that poor restaurants Instagram page, I don’t really think they meant it or deserved it.’
‘I was speaking with management today, and to hear that chefs have been receiving harmful threats is extremely disheartening and not something that I would ever wish upon anyone. I didn’t even name the restaurant in the original video,’ he added.
Whilst commenters on the video were less than convinced, one stated: ‘Lolol at Quality Meats doing damage control’
Another wrote: ‘everyone in the comments that’s ever worked at a restaurant knows it didn’t just get misplaced or forgotten’
‘They are lying.. how did they forget about it yet they told you guys that there was none left? that makes no sense,’ said another.
However, Nordheimer said his friend loved the fact that the story blew up, and thought it was hilarious to see the story in the news. He added: ‘Maybe the birthday present was the fun we had along the way.’