A TikTok food content creator had a strong hunch that the kitchen staff ate the birthday cake he baked and brought to a celebration dinner at a posh New York City restaurant.
Ryan Nordheimer explained the disappointing situation on TikTok, saying that the "funfetti" birthday cake he made for his friend—valued at a couple hundred dollars—was not fully enjoyed by the party group.
The 25-year-old food influencer said he entrusted the 15-layer cake, which was about twice the size of his head, to the Quality Meats restaurant staff to serve his group after being told he wasn't allowed to cut the slices himself due to safety reasons.
When very thin slices were served during the cake celebration part of the dinner, Nordheimer realized that, "Definitely not all of the cake was served to us," and that there should be plenty left.
But when he asked the server about the remaining half of the cake, he was told there wasn't any.
Here is a video showing him making the cake and his friends enjoying what was served at the restaurant.
Nordheimer casually mentioned in the video that it was nice to have his "little slice with all those beautiful layers and cookies" even though "The restaurant ate half of the cake for themselves."
His record-scratch comment prompted a user to ask, "The restaurant did what???"
Nordheimer explained in another video addressing concerns about the cake:
"The only explanation is that this high-end New York City midtown steakhouse took the cake back to the kitchen, cut all of us meager slices of cake to eat and they had just eaten the rest of it themselves."
He acknowledged the hard work involved during long shifts and that the staff deserved to have a little bit of a "sweet treat at the end of the night."
However, Nordheimer didn't expect the restaurant would help themselves to the cake a customer had made as a present for his friend, who deserved to have the rest to take home.
Here's Nordheimer's Story Time TikTok of the birthday cake debacle.
Users were appalled at Nordheimer's story.
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After Nordheimer's story circulated online, the upscale steakhouse was charred by angry Instagram commenters over the alleged cake-gate.
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In a follow-up TikTok, Nordheimer addressed a commenter who suggested they would "follow up with the manager on this."
He said that the restaurant manager did reach out and confirmed after looking through kitchen security footage that the restaurant neglected to give the remaining portion of the cake back to Nordheimer and his friends.
Nordheimer was told the cake was likely "forgotten about and left in the kitchen," and he said the restaurant took action for the inconvenient misunderstanding.
"They were super kind and they offered a free dinner for two back at their restaurant to make up for obviously this whole situation."
He continued:
"So it's disappointing that we didn't get our leftovers but most likely what happened, and I do have to think, that it was a busy Saturday night, and there's a lot of things going on in the restaurant and unfortunately my cake just ended up on the chopping block at the end of the night."
After receiving clarification that it was all an honest oversight, Nordheimer asked followers to "take a chill pill" with all the negative comments on "that poor restaurant's Instagram page."
"I don't think they meant it or deserved it," he said of the trolling leveled at Quality Meats.
He acknowledged that the employees were all "just trying to make a living like all of us" and that we all make mistakes.
Despite the explanation from Quality Meats, users weren't particularly convinced by the restaurant's excuse.
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Nordheimer said that if there was a silver lining to all of this, it was the fact that his birthday friend found the whole incident going viral and "popping up in tabloids " hilarious.
"Maybe the birthday present was the fun we had along the way," added Nordheimer.
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