SOUTH MIAMI, Fla. – A serial dine-and-dasher targeted a South Florida sports bar chain, hitting up five locations over two weeks and racking up $650 in unpaid tabs, according to police.
Authorities said Juan Carlos Rivera targeted Sports Grill, which has multiple locations in Miami-Dade County, including in South Miami, where chief operating officer and managing partner Christine Marques called the behavior “so disheartening.”
“Because we’re a family restaurant,” she said.
Police and staff said Rivera, 40, of southwest Miami-Dade, was seen in surveillance video donning a blazer and sunglasses. Staffers say he likes Sports Grill’s grilled wings and top-shelf liquor, but not paying for it.
“It just affects everyone more than most people would think about,” Ellen Fitzgerald, Sports Grill multi-unit manager, said. “We like to think people are inherently good, right? And then when something like this happens, it’s sad.”
Marques said Rivera had a method.
“(He) came into the restaurant, ordered a couple of beers, would sit at the bar, have something to eat, something casual, maybe a shot and then tell the bartender, ‘I’m going to go ahead and order something for my wife,’” she said. “The bartender puts the order (in) and brings the order to the bar. He says, ‘My wife decided to come and pick it up. She’s outside. I’m going to run it out to her, and I’ll be right back.’
But he didn’t come back, she said.
“He left a card, and it was one of those cards you know, that you get in the mail that’s like, ‘You’re pre-approved,’ puts it in front of the register, and then the guy bolts,” Marques said.
“(Social media site) Only in Dade was very instrumental in putting all this together,” Marques said.
It’s not the first time Rivera’s been accused of the same crime.
In 2024, he was accused of taking Outback Steakhouse’s motto “No rules, just right” too literally when officers with what was then the Miami-Dade Police Department arrested him for allegedly dining and dashing at its location on Miller Drive.
In that case, authorities said he also gave workers a card that had “no (funds),” an MDPD arrest report states.
For the latest incident, Doral police arrested him on Wednesday night on charges of organized scheme to defraud and defrauding an innkeeper in connection with an alleged dine-and-dash at Sports Grill’s location at 5241 NW 87th Ave.
He was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Thursday evening.
“You need to stay away from Sports Grill, sir,” a Miami-Dade judge told Rivera in court Thursday.