Texas Woman Goes To Family-Owned Restaurant, Complains About Hair In Food. Then They Roll Back The Tape

Trying to scam a restaurant into comping your meal is never a good look.

But getting caught on camera doing it? That’s a whole different level of embarrassing. That’s what happened to this couple. And their audacity may surprise you.

Restaurant Owner Catches Couple Planting Hair In Food

In a series of viral videos with more than 16 million combined views, Houston-based Mexican restaurant Fajitas Mexican Grill (@fajitasmexicangrill) exposed a couple’s attempt to get free food by faking a hair-in-the-food complaint.

The first video shows security camera footage from inside the restaurant. A couple sits in a booth eating their meal.

The woman (who has long light brown hair) reaches into her bun, pulls out a strand of hair, and places it on the table. Her dining companion picks up the hair, puts it in his food, and calls the waiter over to complain. The waiter takes the hair and puts on his glasses to inspect it more closely.

“Please don’t do this to a small family business,” the text overlay on the video reads. “We’re trying so hard to stay open.”

“Please be aware. We’re a small, family-owned restaurant trying our best to keep our doors open. We understand that eating out isn’t affordable for everyone. But faking issues to get free food hurts small businesses more than people realize. For us, it’s income we simply can’t afford to lose,” they add in the caption.

Staff Pushes Back

In a follow-up video, the restaurant explained how they responded to the complaint in real time.

“We explain that there are no female staff members in the kitchen and no employees with light colored hair,” text overlay states. “He then argues that he has no long hair and the woman has the hair tied up.”

The restaurant’s caption emphasized their careful approach: “We needed to clarify to our customers that the situation did not originate from our staff. We treat matters of this nature with the utmost care. Thank you for your support.”

Owner Speaks Out

In a third video, the restaurant owner—a single mother of two daughters—addresses the situation directly and provided more context.

She explains that the couple came in around 3pm. The woman ordered a torta, while the man ordered a more expensive dish: Verana seafood for $19.95, which includes grilled tilapia with sautéed shrimp.

“They were acting a little bit strange,” she says in the video. “The man was very distressed about the hair. He took off his cap, saying that he doesn’t have long hair and that the woman, which I assume is his wife, had her hair tied up.”

As a business owner facing the financial struggles of January, a slower month, she wanted to get to the root of the issue, so she says she looked through the cameras that night.

“I just wanted to know where this hair was coming from because, again, we do want to provide the best customer service for all the customers that we have,” she says.

When she reviewed the footage and discovered what actually happened, it made her sad.

“And to answer the million-dollar question everyone was asking—we didn’t charge for the food he ate,” the caption reveals.

Why This Scam Hurts So Much

The owner’s concern about losing income isn’t an exaggeration—restaurant profit margins are notoriously thin. According to Toast, the average restaurant profit margin typically falls between just 3% to 5%, with the range spanning anywhere from 0% to 15%.

That means for every dollar in sales, restaurants are often keeping only three to five cents as profit. The rest goes toward the “Big Three” expenses: cost of goods sold (typically one-third of revenue), labor (another third), and overhead costs like rent, utilities, equipment repairs, and credit card processing fees.

When a restaurant comps a meal—whether legitimately or due to fraud—that loss comes directly out of already razor-thin margins. For a small, family-owned business operating on 3% to 5% profit, a $20-$30 comped meal can represent several hundred dollars’ worth of sales needed just to break even on that loss.

What To Actually Do If You Find Hair In Your Food

Ironically, if this couple had genuinely found hair in their food, they handled it the worst possible way.

Food & Wine offers guidance on the appropriate response:

First, don’t freak out. Examine the hair to determine if it might actually be your own—is it sitting on top of the food or cooked into it? If it’s lying on top, there’s a good chance it just settled there.

If you determine it came from the kitchen, tell your server discreetly. There’s no need to announce it to the entire restaurant or make a scene. The server and manager will assess the situation and likely apologize, remake your food, and possibly comp the item.

Accept the apology gracefully once they’ve fixed the problem. Restaurants don’t want to be remembered as the place that served hair, and they’ll typically handle the situation quickly and professionally.

Commenters React

“Sir our cook is bald,” a top comment joked.

“I hope you pressed charges for fraud,” a person said.

“Something tells me this isn’t their first time doing this…” another wrote.

BroBible reached out to Fajitas Mexican Grill via email and TikTok direct message for comment.