Camera Captures Apparent Tip Jar Theft At East Bay Pizza Parlor

LIVERMORE (KPIX 5) – Workers at one Tri-Valley pizza shop say it doesn't get much lower than stealing money out of their tip jar, but they say that's exactly what happened on Monday afternoon.

The entire incident was captured on the shop's security cameras.

Video provided to KPIX 5 showed a man walking into the Pizza Guys restaurant on North Vasco Road in Livermore around 3:30 p.m. on Monday. He starts looking around and walks toward the back of the store.

"If you're coming in and you're trying to get help, the first thing you do is you're like, 'Hey! Hello! Is anybody here?'" Pizza Guys manager Lori Nguyen told KPIX 5.

Nguyen said the man never said anything, but instead kept looking around. She said she was the only one working that afternoon, and had ducked into the bathroom, leaving the front of the store unattended.

In the video, the man was seen continuing to look around, then he walks to the front of the counter, and it appears he helps himself to cash out of the tip jar.

Moments later, Nguyen comes back up front. "Were you waiting long?" she asked the man.

The man replies, "No. I just came in."

Nguyen said something felt off. "I was thinking, you don't look like you're here to buy pizza," she said.

"You guys got the slices, right?" the man asked.

"Do we have the what?" she says.

"The slices," he replies.

Nguyen answers, "We don't sell by the slice."

A few seconds later, a delivery driver walks in and the man walked out. He had been inside the store for less than two minutes.

"Probably an hour later is when I noticed that there were only ones, but I know for sure there were fives and tens," said Nguyen.

That's when she decided to check the security cameras and she says she saw the man pocketing the money.

"The tips might not be a lot, as far as amount wise, but it's the feeling that you can't shake. That violation, that feeling that something of yours got taken away," Nguyen said.

The manager said the man walked away with maybe $15 or $20. Nguyen told KPIX 5 she doesn't want him arrested, but instead hopes he realizes how hurtful it was to the staff, so hopefully he won't make the same mistake again.