Well?
That last piece of the question is important. A food fight at a buffet is simple. You paid for that food. You get to throw as much of it as you want.
If it isn’t a buffet? I see four possibilities here.
The first is that everyone still only pays for their meal. Normal protocol. Everything works out like a standard meal except the waiters are covered in sauces when they show up with your check and you maybe didn’t get to eat because you slapped a stranger across the face with a pork chop.
The second is that the people who started the food fight pay for everyone’s meal. This is my hope. My hope is that if I’m in a restaurant and someone else starts a food fight, I can participate free of charge. This feels especially fair if the unstated agreement is that in exchange for the restaurant charging the original guerrilla eater this way, the guerrilla eater will not be *legally* charged.
The third is that the law becomes involved. This isn’t mutually exclusive with the first or fourth, but it feels like it deserves its own paragraph. It’s possible that throwing food at another person is assault. If that’s the case, the law is lame and I’m out on the law, but I have to admit I think this might be how it works.
The fourth is that the restaurant is so shell-shocked that everyone gets a free meal. This is my second-favorite scenario, trailing the second. I’d rather the second be how it works—I’d rather the restaurant still get paid—but it’d be a fun cheat code if, in the event you realized you forgot your wallet, you just needed to start a food fight and everything would be fine.
Readers who’ve participated in food fights at restaurants: Please tell us how it worked for you.
