An update with news that a suspect was arrested was posted at 7:09 a.m. Wednesday

Police arrest man accused of dine and dashing at Lewiston restaurant

In the surveillance photo, the young man appears perfectly content as he picks over a plate of food at Legends Sports Bar and Grill.

He stares directly at the camera but if he’s nervous at all about what’s about to go down, it doesn’t show. Here is just another satisfied diner with a belly full of pizza and a whole lot of beer.

A short time after the image was captured, the 24-year-old made for the exit.

“He walked out the door as if he was just stepping outside for a minute,” says Legends owner Melinda Small. “And then all of a sudden, he’s really dashing. Like, he’s running away.”

All that beer, all that pizza and all those onion rings went unpaid for as the mystery diner fled into the night. A classic dine-and-dash, but what’s a restaurant to do? You can’t just chase these people all over the city to make them pay their bills, right?

Small begs to differ.

After reviewing the surveillance footage and poking around a bit, she discovered a couple important facts.

For one, this was no ordinary cheapskate. This was perhaps the most infamous dine-and-dasher the area has ever seen: According to police, by the time he skipped out of his bill at Legends on July 2, the 24-year-old had already stiffed nearly a dozen local restaurants out of hundreds of dollars worth of food and booze.

“He basically hit every big restaurant around here,” said Lewiston police Officer David Rosquete, who was about to be pulled into the fray.

Sometimes the 24-year-old big eater would eat and drink so much before skipping out, he’d fall asleep at the bar, according to witnesses. And what’s more, the fellow had been arrested several times up and down the East Coast for this very thing. There is at least one news story out there about the man’s bill-ducking proclivities down in Florida.

This, as it happens, is the kind of big league dine-and-dasher one could write folk songs about without being accused of overdramatizing.

And yet two days before the Fourth of July, the fellow picked the wrong restaurant for yet another free meal.

Once Small heard that a customer had stiffed her staff at Legends, she went full bore in her attempts to catch him — and she had the full power of social media at her disposal.

A photo of the 24-year-old went up on the restaurant Facebook page at 4 p.m., just after the meal phantom skipped out. Within seconds, information was flying in fast and furious.

Other restaurant owners acknowledged they had been targeted by the same man. Local residents, always eager to play sleuth, came forth with a wide range of information, including sightings of the culprit at various points around the Twin Cities.

Small encouraged them. This kind of blatant thievery could not stand, she insisted. With restaurants failing all over the place, those that were left needed to band together to combat this kind of thievery.

“I don’t want to come across as judgmental,” Small says. “But don’t mess with me. Don’t mess with my people. I don’t care if it’s just a $4 bill, if you’re being disrespectful to my staff in any way, shape or form, I’m going to hold you accountable.”

If the 24-year-old gourmand had been aware of Small’s attitude on the matter, it might have given him indigestion. But no. As dozens and then hundreds of people continued to add pieces to the puzzle on the Legends’ Facebook page over the next few hours, the legendary eater was already off for another free round of booze and food.

And then the clincher: “He’s at the Olive Garden right now,” a woman posted on Facebook as the hunt turned red hot.

A second woman confirmed that the alleged thief was sitting right behind her at the Auburn restaurant.

Small spotted the posts almost immediately and called the manager at Olive Garden to make sure he was aware of exactly who was sitting in one of their booths and stuffing his face.

He was. And he was keeping an eye on the suspect.

Small called Lewiston police, too, and soon got Officer Rosquete, who headed straight away for Olive Garden. He had all the information about the Legends theft and he was quickly learning how many other restaurants had been victimized by the same guy.

There is video all over social media now of Rosquete detaining the 24-year-old accused of so much free eating.

For a time, the video shows, the suspect tried flopping around on the floor as an evasion tactic, but when it became clear the cop wasn’t having it, the suspect — surprisingly lean for all the free food he’d consumed — submitted to the handcuffs.

At the Olive Garden, diners and staff erupted in thunderous celebration as the suspect was led away.

“It’s not often that I get applause from people,” Rosquete said.

If this was the end of the story — if this skinny man with the big appetite had simply been taken to jail — it might warrant just another listing in the police log.

But as weird as things had gotten already, they got a little weirder, still.

After taking the 24-year-old into custody, Rosquete called Small to ask her how she wanted this handled. By then, they had both learned that the suspect was a young alcoholic who had been jailed several times and who recently had signed himself out of St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, where he had been treated for his addictions.

Small is not without sympathy. She did not want to shame the man. But clearly there had to be consequences for this kind of open thievery.

So when Rosquete asked what he should do with the culprit, Small was inspired.

“Bring him back here,” Small told the cop. “He’s going to sit at the bar and tell us whether he can pay that bill or not. He needs to be held accountable. He’s been arrested so many times, there’s no fear anymore. He needs to feel the energy that comes with being held accountable.”

As he was led back into Legends, the “Bad Boys” theme song from the show “Cops” was playing on the sound system.

The fine diner now had a choice. Find a way to pay Legends what was owed or go back to jail.

Go figure; the young man who had gobbled up so much beer and chow didn’t have a cent on him. But he had a phone and so he started calling around to his family and begging them to pay this tab.

At last, family members in Florida agreed to take the check.

“They gave a tip to the server, too,” Small says. “And the next day, the family called the restaurant to express their apologies.”

The family, as it happens, told Small that this 24-year-old had “worn them thin” with his shenanigans over the years.

Again, Small has sympathy. She, and the others who helped bring the young man to justice, hope that this public shaming will be enough to get him to turn his life around.

“Coming from someone who has a loved one that’s an addict,” one woman wrote on the Legends page, “making them accountable for their actions, especially when they steal, is helpful for the family that cares and loves that person.”

Legally speaking, the case of the purloined grub is unusual. Because Legends was the only complainant when the 24-year-old was captured, and because he ultimately paid the bill, the suspect was never arrested.

The man was never booked. His name did not appear in the jail arrest sheets. Because he is not formally charged, we opted not to name him here.

Yet with criminal trespass warnings coming in from as many as 10 other restaurants, the man may eventually have to go before a judge and answer for his strange dining habits.

When that day comes, Small will be there, not because she wants to further shame the fellow, she says, but because she feels that local restaurants need to do all they can to combat this kind of thievery if they want to survive.

And who knows? Maybe enduring this wild, public ordeal is the cold water splash to the face the 24-year-old needs to get his act together.

In the meantime, I will extend an invitation to this daring dine-and-dasher because I’d love to hear the story from his perspective, as well.

Call me, brother. Or write me, tag me on Facebook or do whatever you have to do to rattle my cage. Let’s talk.

I’ll even buy dinner.