Restaurant owner receives envelope with £40 and apology from diners who walked out after meal

'I thought those kinds of people had disappeared from the planet'

We’ve all been there - you order a meal only to realise the restaurant only accepts cash. So what do you do?

Three diners walked out after finishing their meal in Middlesborough with the promise they would return with cash, only to never return. However, they have since fulfilled their promise - by sending a cash-filled envelope to the restaurant a few days later.

After the customers walked out of Kilimanjaro without paying for their meal, promising they were in search of a cash machine, owner Apollo Apollinaire chalked it up to a “bad experience.”

Apollinaire said, “I put it down as a bad experience. Usually, people don’t walk out as a whole group for a cash machine.”

Instructing his staff to make sure one of the customers always stays in the future, the restaurateur said of the experience, “We accepted they would never come back and we had lost the money.”

But the owner has since had “his faith in humanity restored” after receiving an envelope of cash from customers who’d left without paying - five days later.

Owner Apollo Apollinaire alongside letter of apology from patrons (Evening Gazette)

It turns out the three diners didn’t intend to dine and dash at all - rather they were actually looking for a cash machine, but then had to catch a train, leaving them with no time to return to the restaurant.

Explained in a letter included with the £40, diners “Tom, Alex and Harry” described how “On our search (for a cash machine) it was apparent that the last train to our hometown was shortly about to depart.”

Describing this moment of realisation, the letter continues, “This diverted our attention away from finding an ATM machine and led to us running down to the train station and just making our train. It was at this point, being too late, we realised our actions and decided to write this letter of apology with £40 enclosed in this envelope.”

Signing the letter, “It is with our deepest regret that not being from Middlesbrough we are not able to come into Kilimanjaro's in person to apologise. Additionally, we will be giving a positive five-star review of your establishment on TripAdvisor. Apologies, Tom, Alex, and Harry,” the diners sincere apology has taught Apollinaire a valuable lesson, which he has shared on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Alongside a picture of the letter, Apollinaire added the caption, “Don’t be quick to judge” and “Read carefully then you will understand that there are honest people over there too.”

If you needed a reminder that there are good people in the world we think this is a pretty good one.