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Woman arrested at Applebee’s after she challenged restaurant’s all you can eat rules

Shawneesha Cobbs and her party allegedly thought they could order one all you can eat meal to feed half a dozen people

Graig Graziosi
Thursday 15 August 2024 12:04 EDT
Related video: Friends mistakenly think they're ordering $1 margaritas at Applebees only for total bill to come out to $70

A woman was arrested after she got into a shouting match with an Applebees manager over the exact terms of an "all you can eat" deal, according to police.

Shawneesha Cobbs, 28, and members of her family were visiting an Applebees in Indiana earlier this month and decided to order an all you can eat meal.

Just before 8:40pm, police in Portage, Indiana were called to the restaurant to assist with a reported disturbance. When they arrived, they found several people having a loud argument inside the restaurant.

Shawneesha Cobbs, 28, was arrested for disorderly conduct related to her alleged disruptive actions at an Indiana Applebees
Shawneesha Cobbs, 28, was arrested for disorderly conduct related to her alleged disruptive actions at an Indiana Applebees (Getty Images)

A woman who spoke to police said that she, Cobbs, another man, and several children had been fighting with the manager of the Applebees over the terms of the restaurant's all you can eat deal.

The group believed that if one member of the party ordered the $15.99 deal, they could just continue asking for food until their entire group had enough to eat.

The manager explained to the group that was not how the deal worked, and that any person receiving food from the all you can eat menu had to pay the $16, Fox32 reports.

That started an argument between the diners and the manager. The diners accused the manager of being unprofessional and claimed that the menu did not make it explicit that the deal was a per person deal and not per party.

Cobbs reportedly tried to emphasize this point by giving a menu to a Portage police officer to review. The officer spotted the part of the menu that specified that the Applebees deal was "per person" and pointed it out to Cobbs.

While this was happening, a couple went to leave the restaurant. Cobbs noticed them and reportedly made it clear that there had been some prior confrontation between her party and the exiting couple. After she began yelling at the couple, police tried to calm Cobbs and warned her she was becoming loud and disorderly.

This prompted a woman from Cobbs' group to try to calm her down, which reportedly did not work. Police allege that Cobbs continued to act disruptive and was warned she would be placed under arrest if she did not calm down.

She apparently did not calm down, and was ultimately arrested and transported to the Porter County Jail on charges of disorderly conduct.

The rest of Cobbs' group covered their bill.

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