Why the restaurant industry attracts so many fraudsters

The restaurant industry has had plenty of its share of fraud, accounting scandals and outright theft.

This episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features a discussion on some of the more interesting such events in the past and features Editor-at-Large Peter Romeo, host of the Restaurant Rewind podcast.

Romeo is the unofficial historian of the restaurant business. We look back at some of the most famous events in the industry, such as the accounting issues at Buca di Beppo and Krispy Kreme 20 years ago, and the impact those events have had on financial reporting.

We also talk about some smaller frauds, like the guy in Michigan who used his company’s loyalty program to take from the till. And my personal favorite, the restaurant in California that used a fake priest to elicit confessions of wrongdoing from its employees.