Thief Tries to Hold Up Restaurant with Burger Flipper

Restaurant owners are experts at coming up with unusual ways to fight off intruders. Remember the chef who used a soup ladle to defend himself or the one who learned kung fu just to deal with thieves? And who could forget the kebab shop owner who dumbfounded a robber simply by giving zero fucks?

The intruders, on the other hand, suffer from a real lack of imagination. A gun? A knife? Come on guys, we've seen it all before.

Something we certainly haven't seen used to hold up a restaurant, however, is a burger flipper. But that's exactly what this burglar reached for when he was backed into the kitchen of a London diner two weeks ago.

Toby Aldenhoven, the chef at Clive's Midtown Diner in Bloomsbury, first spotted the intruder on the restaurant's CCTV. It was after closing hours and the man had wandered in and started to raid the till. Aldenhoven ran down from the office above the restaurant and grappled with him, but he managed to escape into the kitchen.

Recounting the ordeal to the Evening Standard, Aldenhoven said: "He broke free from my grip and ran into the kitchen. That was the moment I thought, 'My knives are in there, they're sharp enough to shave with.' That was scary."

But Aldenhoven needn't have worried. When the intruder returned to the main restaurant, he was armed not with a meat cleaver or paring knife, but a burger flipper. Aldenhoven was able to fight him off with a chair.

"I was like a lion tamer, keeping him at arm's length. I don't know what came over me. I was so angry," he said.

After the brawl spilled out onto the street, a passing tuk-tuk driver intervened and helped the chef restrain the robber until the police arrived. He was subsequently charged and pleaded guilty to theft.

This intruder's flippin' days are well and truly over.