Influencer Accuses Restaurant Staff of Eating Cake He Made for Friend — but Here's What He Now Says Really Happened

Mar. 15, 2025

Ryan Nordheimer poses with a funfetti birthday cake he made for his friend.Photo:Ryan Nordheimer/Instagram

Ryan Nordheimer/Instagram

A New York City cook and influencer is clearing up some not-so-sweet details after he went viral for accusing a local restaurant’s staff of “eating half” of his friend’s birthday cake.

Ryan Nordheimer, who has300,000 TikTok followers, first shared a glimpse at his “funfetti birthday cake” recipe on Oct. 1, when at the end of the video, he revealed that he believed a restaurant “ate half the cake for themselves.”

After being asked to clarify, the 25-year-old influencermade a follow-up video, in which he again claimed that the remainder of the cake — which took him 5 or 6 hours to make — wound up instead with staff at the dining location where he celebrated his friend’s birthday.

Nordheimer said that he initially called the location — which he did not name — ahead of time and offered to cut the cake himself, but that the person who answered the phone told him it would be a “safety hazard” and insisted those on staff cut the cake.

As Nordheimer explained, the staff “ended up taking the cake back in the kitchen to serve it,” and he and his friends were served what he described as “thin” cake slices. After making a rough estimate of how many of the small slices could come from the cake, Nordheimer believed only half of the cake was served to them. But he and his friends left the restaurant empty-handed, with no more of the cake in sight.

“At the end of the dinner, when we asked the waiter where our cake leftovers were … they just say that there’s no cake left,” he recalled. “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 then clarified that he believed those on staff deserved a “sweet treat,” but that the cake was his “hard work” and a birthday present to his friend.

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Just a day later, Nordheimerreturned to TikTokwith an update on the cake dilemma, revealing that three different people within the steakhouse’s management team called him to confirm that they “neglected to give back” a “portion of the cake” after looking at security footage.

“They most likely forgot about it and it was left it the kitchen,” Nordheimer recalled being told on the phone. “They were super kind and they offered a free dinner for two back at their restaurant to make up for obviously this whole situation. So obviously its disappointing that we didn’t get our leftovers but most likely what happened — and I do have to think — is that it was a busy Saturday night … unfortunately my cake just ended up on the chopping block at the end of the night.”

While the influencer did not directly name the restaurant that he says misplaced his dessert, fans on social media quickly pointed fingers at Quality Meats — a steakhouse that wound up flooded with commenters asking who ate the birthday cake this week.

A Quality Meats representative told PEOPLE on Oct. 5 that they “proactively reached out to Ryan” and have been in touch for the past few days.

“We have invited him in for a complimentary dinner, and have apologized for our team’s lack of communication the evening of his visit,” the rep said. “Whenever a guest brings in their own dessert, the team tries to estimate the size of the cake 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.”“To be clear, our team has referenced security footage of the kitchen that evening to get an exact sense of how much of the cake was left at the end of the dinner,” the rep 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.”

“If there’s a silver lining to this whole thing, its that my friend whose birthday it was absolutely loves the fact that this whole thing blew up and thinks its so funny and hilarious to see this popping up in tabloids or whatever,” he said.

“So maybe the birthday present was the fun we had along the way.”

source: people.com