NYC restaurants hit back at dine-and-dashers with social media shame: Nothing that police can do

Don’t fork around with these New Yorkers!Pushed-to-the-limit NYC restaurateurs are faced with another battle in the fight for their financial lives — a growing scourge of dine-and-dash incidents.From deluded influencers to old-school scofflaws, this latest affront is just one more headache for inflation-embattled businesses to handle — and seemingly on their own, too, in an era where law enforcement, plates heaped high with meatier crimes, tend to view the Class A misdemeanor as small potatoes.Some fed-up proprietors aren’t taking the insult lying down — instead flocking to social media to name and shame the culprits, often with the help of their followers.

Throwing the perps into Instagram jail, it turns out, is a much quicker way to justice than ratting out tab-sentee customers to the cops.Britney Cariño, owner of Talavera Cantina in The Bronx’s trendy Mott Haven neighborhood, rushed to the restaurant’s social accounts last May, after a table of customers walked out on their $112 tab.The alleged terrible trio sauntered into the Mexican cocktail bar on Cinco de Mayo — the busiest day of the month, Cariño said.They ordered tacos, chips and guacamole and four frozen margaritas.After enjoying themselves, they apparently slipped out the door without paying the bill — during a power outage that had torpedoed the POS system tracking their checks.

While reviewing payments processed offline, Cariño spotted the outstanding balance and caught the group red-handed on security footage.“One of the women, she takes the check tray and she actually puts it under her purse,” the second-generation business owner told The Post.“They look around again and then that’s when they leave.”Appalled over the fryjacking — her first in three years running Talavera — Cariño said she aired the diners’ dirty laundry on Instagram with a screen grab of the footage, letting them know that if they paid up, everything would be fine.

“My first instinct wasn...