News24 | Restaurant staff lauded after keeping shopper’s forgotten trolley safe for two days

A Fourways family restaurant has won praise after staff discovered a forgotten grocery trolley and immediately decided to store the food safely in their fridges.

• A Fourways family restaurant has won praise after staff discovered a forgotten grocery trolley and immediately made the decision to store the food safely in their fridges.
• For 48 hours, not a single item was touched – a gesture that stunned the shopper who returned, unsure whether her goods would still be there.
• The act of honesty has since received thousands of likes, with both the customer and the restaurant staff saying it’s a reminder that everyday kindness is still part of South Africa’s story.

A Johannesburg restaurant has been praised for going the extra mile after staff found a grocery trolley a customer had left behind and carefully stored the contents until the owner collected them 48 hours later.

Smoke Daddy’s, a family restaurant in Fourways, was running as normal when waiters noticed the abandoned trolley filled with food and other shopping items.

Their first instinct was to unpack everything and place it in the restaurant’s fridges to keep the goods fresh in case the customer returned.

Back home, Thato Cassuto, the owner of the groceries, was baffled for a while about where she could have left the trolley. After retracing her steps, she realised that she might have left it at Smoke Daddy’s and that it was worth a try to check if they had kept it for her.

To her pleasant surprise, the groceries were indeed at Smoke Daddy’s restaurant, stored safely, untouched and ready for her to collect the following day.

“I was in a state of shock and absolute disbelief,” Cassuto told News24.

She added:

The front-of-house manager of the restaurant, Emmanuel Mpofu, said it was standard procedure for Smoke Daddy’s staff to do this for their customers.

“That’s what we do normally every time. When a client leaves something behind, it’s our responsibility to make sure that that thing is actually taken care of.

“When I saw the trolley, I just did something that anyone else would have done.”

‘I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for taking something’

Cassuto expressed her appreciation in a Facebook post on the “I Love Fourways” group to over 2 000 likes and a hundred comments.

“Given the economy we’re living in, I couldn’t have blamed anybody if they took anything. People are having a tough time out there and there’s a trolley full of food; yet, nobody touched it.

“For two full days, no one touched a single thing. Not one. Even the receipt was still in the bag, waiting patiently for its rightful owner.”

READ | ‘Haibo! Too Much Traffic’: Durban students turn SA road chaos into award-winning game

She describes the kind gesture as another side of South Africa that many are not regularly exposed to.

“This… this… is South Africa too. The South Africa that holds your forgotten groceries for 48 hours and doesn’t help themselves to even a single grape. The South Africa that reminds you that kindness is still our national baseline.”

Mpofu, appreciating Cassuto’s Facebook post, said it was all about doing their part and that every good gesture was a reminder that there is still hope.

“Truly, there is hope for South Africa, because once we put a narrative such as this, you just imagine how many people you are actually conveying to understand and believe and also want to live in such a South Africa.”

READ | ‘Bring Beverly Back’: The prank that turned a missing mannequin into a Karoo celebrity

Ending off her post on Facebook, Cassuto said Mpofu and her team’s kind gesture had made the world a better place.

“So here’s a big, grateful shoutout to Emmanuel and the team at Smoke Daddy’s, Cedar Square. You didn’t just save my groceries, you affirmed my belief in us.”

If you have a kind story to tell, email feelgood@news24.com.