An NYC-Based Cook Brought A Homemade Birthday Cake To A "High-End" Restaurant. What He Claims Happened At The End Of The Night Has Everyone's Jaws On The Floor.

The internet is no stranger to cake drama. From last year's infamous rainbow sprinkle "CakeGate" to last month's "Leighton Lee unicorn cake," it seems no cake is safe from scrutiny. Now, TikTok is fixed on the latest baked goods fiasco featuring a homemade cake that was allegedly eaten by restaurant staff during a birthday dinner.

It all started when food content creator Ryan Nordheimer filmed the process of making a 15-layer Funfetti birthday cake for his friend. At the end of his two-part video, he offhandedly mentioned that "the restaurant ate half the cake for themselves."

@ryannordheimer / Via tiktok.com

Naturally, people were curious about what happened.

In a now-viral follow-up video with 9 million views, Ryan broke down the events that seemingly unfolded that night for all the intrigued commenters. "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 for his birthday," he explained. He mentioned that the cake took "five or six hours" to make and that he would value it at "several hundreds of dollars."

Ryan said he makes a birthday cake for all of his friends' birthdays and that his Funfetti cake that night was "massive." "At least twice the size of my head," he compares, which comes into context later in his story.

Moving along the series of events, Ryan said that when he and his group got to the restaurant, he handed the cake to the hostess, who took it to the back. "We have a great dinner, then it's cake celebration time," he continued. The staff brought out the cake with a candle, and after singing "Happy Birthday," they brought it back into the kitchen to cut it.

Ryan said he had called the restaurant ahead of time to ask if he could cut the cake himself but was told it was a "safety hazard" and that the staff would do it.

@ryannordheimer / Via tiktok.com

When the cake was finally served, Ryan called the slices "thin." "We're looking at a few millimeters of thickness," he said, estimating that his group of 12, each being served a slice that small, would equate to "about half of that massive cake."

After their dinner was over, Ryan's group asked for the remainder of the cake, figuring there'd be a decent amount left. "We were expecting them to bring out the remaining half of the cake," he said, "But instead, they just said that there was no cake left." Ryan concluded that 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."

Ryan empathized with the staff and understood that after a long shift, "they deserve maybe a little bit of a sweet treat." But ultimately, he said he was left disappointed that his friend couldn't take home the cake he had gifted him and worked so hard on. "It's definitely a little disappointing when my friend is just left with the memory of one of these slices," he added.

@ryannordheimer / Via tiktok.com

This apparently wasn't the first time Ryan's friend experienced a "cake theft" at a restaurant. According to him, this also happened last year when a restaurant took "two slices" of his birthday cake at the end of the evening.

At the end of his video, he prompted commenters to tell him if the restaurant was in the wrong or if he should have communicated more clearly that since he had made the cake, his group would like the leftovers. Then, he decided, "Maybe in the future, we'll just be serving the cakes at our apartments because clearly, New York City restaurants steal cakes!"

Fortunately for Ryan, over 31,000 commenters seemed to take his side. Even current and former food service workers found the whole situation bizarre. "As a former fine dining server, we would be fired if we did this," one person wrote.

And many people advised him to confront the restaurant and demand some sort of compensation.

Even though Ryan omitted the restaurant's name from his video, referring to it only as a "high-end New York City Midtown steakhouse," internet sleuths were quick to identify it as Quality Meats, a steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan. In a statement to BuzzFeed, a representative for Quality Meats confirmed that Ryan's group did, in fact, dine there that night but denied that their staff ate any of the cake, calling the accusations "completely false."

Since Ryan's video went viral, people have been commenting nonstop on Quality Meats' social accounts, demanding an explanation as to what happened.

Their Google and Yelp reviews have also been infiltrated by upset viewers who can't look past the supposed cake theft, "no matter how good the food is." A few of these reviews have since been removed, and due to the increased attention, opening the Quality Meats Yelp page leads to an "Unusual Activity Alert" pop-up. Posting on the page has also been temporarily turned off.

There also seemed to be confusion about the restaurant's policy that cakes must be cut in the kitchen and not at the table because it's a "safety hazard, but Quality Meats assured BuzzFeed this is standard practice across all their restaurants.

The cake saga doesn't end there, though. Since all the negative backlash, Ryan posted a new video to TikTok a few days later, informing everyone that he had received "three different calls from people within the management of the restaurant." He was told that security footage from the kitchen confirmed that a portion of the cake was left behind and that they "most likely forgot about [the cake] and that it was left in the kitchen."

@ryannordheimer / Via tiktok.com

Quality Meats confirmed to us that they failed to pack "approximately two slices after the party of 12 was served, not half the cake," apologized to Ryan for their team's "lack of communication" that evening, and offered him a complimentary dinner for two in response.

Later in the video, Ryan mentioned that he was pretty understanding of the whole situation overall. "Most likely what happened...is that it was a busy Saturday night, and there's a lot of things that are going on in the restaurant, and unfortunately, my cake just ended up on the chopping block at the end of the night," he said.

Even with Ryan's statement, the case wasn't quite so open-and-shut, as commenters accused the restaurant of lying. Some even pointed back to the waiter, who told the group that there was no cake left.

Still, Ryan advised those watching to refrain from leaving comments on Quality Meats' Instagram, adding, "There's plenty of people at that restaurant just trying to make a living like all of us, and they admitted it was a mistake, and we all make mistakes, so I can live with that."

Do you think this was an honest mistake, or do you believe the restaurant is still in the wrong? Tell us all your thoughts about this cake saga in the comments.

BuzzFeed reached out to Ryan, but he did not reply for comment.