A New York City man is apologizing after going viral for accusing an upscale steakhouse’s staff of eating half the cake he made for his friend’s birthday. He says he just learned the truth about what happened, and he regrets the bad publicity it caused the restaurant.
Ryan Nordheimer, a healthcare analyst and content creator, shared a story about what he thought happened to his friend’s birthday cake on TikTok. The saga quickly went viral and lead to internet sleuths sniffing out a popular NYC eatery, Quality Meats, and flooding it with bad reviews and negative comments.
It all started on Oct. 1, when Nordheimer uploaded part two of his “funfetti” cookie cake recipe tutorial.
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While the video shows Nordheimer finishing the layer cake, decorating it with buttercream, sprinkles, cookies and torched meringue, a throwaway line at the end wound up getting the most attention:
“Although the restaurant ate half the cake for themselves, it was nice to have my little slice with all those beautiful layers and cookie(s),” he said in the clip.
“the restaurant did what????” one commenter asked.
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In response, Nordheimer posted a follow-up video explaining what he believed happened that night.
“This is the story of how a restaurant in New York City ended up eating half of this incredible birthday cake that I made for my friend,” Nordheimer said on Oct. 2. In the video, he explains how the confection took “five or six hours” to make and values it “at several hundreds of dollars.”
Nordheimer said the restaurant declined his request to cut the cake himself, citing safety concerns. When he arrived at the dinner, he handed his creation to an employee.
“You can see how big this cake is compared to my friend, so it’s not small,” he said, showing viewers a photo of the full cake sitting on the table in front of the birthday boy.
Nordheimer then switched the visuals to show the slice of cake he was served and called it “thin.” In the video, he estimated that half the cake was still in the kitchen based on the singular slices each of the 12 guests received.
“Definitely not all the cake was served to us,” he said.
At the end of the dinner, the group requested their cake leftovers to take home — instead, they were told there was no cake left.
“So the only explanation is that this high end New York City Midtown steakhouse took the cake back into the kitchen, cut all of us meager slices of cake to eat and they had just eaten the rest of it for themselves.”
Nordheimer ends his video with the claim that this happened to his friend last year, too. “Except that restaurant, a different steakhouse, only took two slices of the cake instead of half,” he said. (Nordheimer later tells TODAY.com he was unable to confirm what happened to the cake last year, and that he assumed it was eaten.)
Nordheimer’s clips went very viral, with his process video garnering 1 million views on TikTok and the initial follow-up raking in over 6 million views and 26,000 comments. On X, a post showing both clips was viewed nearly 10 million times.
“I would RAGE,” wrote one TikTok user.
“I’d be so upset, cake leftovers is the best part 😭.” commented another.
“the restaurant said you can have your cake but not eat it too,” wrote someone else.
Most of the comments were in support of Nordheimer, but not everyone was convinced.
“I’ve been in the industry for two decades,” another TikTok commenter wrote. “When a rogue birthday cake comes into the kitchen- of course there’s eyes on it. No one has EVER eaten without getting the go ahead from the table.”
“I bake so I’m with you on this one,” wrote another. “There was definitely nothing left. It’s a small cake 😅.”
Nordheimer never named the restaurant in question, but armchair detectives believed the birthday dinner was held at Quality Meats, a popular steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan, which denies the TikToker’s claims.
“We have referenced security footage of the kitchen that evening, and can ensure that our staff did not eat any of the birthday cake,” a Quality Meats representative tells TODAY.com via email.
“Whenever a guest brings in their own desserts, the team tries to estimate the size of the slices with a buffer in case a guest wants seconds. Once the party of 12 was served, there were only two slices left — not half of the cake,” they continued. “While we acknowledge that we failed to pack up the remaining two slices, the accusations that the staff ate the cake are completely false. We’ve reached out to the guest to apologize for our team’s lack of communication that evening.”
Quality Meats declined to show TODAY.com video footage of the kitchen, saying it had not received employees’ permission to do so.
Regardless, people have been bombarding the steakhouse with false reviews, taking to the eatery’s Yelp, Facebook and Instagram pages to leave negative comments. Some internet users left GIFs or emoji of cake as their two cents on the subject.
Then, in an Oct. 4, update video, Nordheimer said he cleared things up with the restaurant and found out what actually happened to his leftovers.
In the video, the TikToker said he had received three different phone calls from the restaurant’s management team over the previous two days. He said the Quality Meats team told him they had looked into the security footage and confirmed there was a portion of the cake left that didn’t make it out to their table, adding “that they most likely forgot about it.”
Nordheimer said “they were super kind” and offered him a free dinner for two as an apology.
“There’s plenty of people at that restaurant just trying to make a living like all of us, and they’ve admitted it was a mistake, and I think we all make mistakes, so I can live with that,” he said.
Nordheimer says he was taught to deal with restaurant mishaps directly rather than leaving negative reviews.
“My dad taught me somewhat well, I hope,” he says, adding that he thinks addressing the team in private correspondence allows you to “get your issue addressed more directly, and it doesn’t impact the ability for the restaurant to get new customers.”
It “gives them a chance to sort of respond and deal with the situation directly with you as the customer,” he says.
Nordheimer says he spoke with a manager the night of, and then posted his TikTok video before speaking with anyone from the team again.
The birthday cake baker appreciates that people felt the need to defend his honor online, but says that some commenters are taking it too far.
“I was speaking with management today, and to hear that chefs have been receiving harmful threats is extremely disheartening and not something that I would ever wish upon anyone,” Nordheimer says. “I didn’t even name the restaurant in the original video.”
All in all, the TikToker says viewers should chill out.
“Of all the things that people could be upset about, I think it’s pretty comical that it’s a few slices of cake that does it,” he said.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
