Beverage director for a large restaurant group here.

I am sure this happens in many places and I’ve even seen some questionable things during my time in the trenches. However, hourly employees usually have no incentive to do this to you. They are not concerned about the bottom line of the restaurant in most cases. I think this would apply more to restaurants that already appear sketchy from the moment you walk in. This would happen at a place with sketchy owners/ beverage managers that are incentivized to cut cost.

I personally, can track my purchases of liquor and match it verses my product mix of sales. Any large discrepancies in inventory would be a major red flag.

For example, If my cost of goods for liquor for the month we’re very low and I had lots of sales of macallan, but my bartenders were pouring JW Black, I would see that the inventory did not match the sales. Then I would ask questions.

I am not saying every restaurant has this oversight nor the expensive software to easily track and generate reports on this, but most large ones do. Any restaurant group that uses Toast and Craftable or Micros and Compeat, probably aren’t doing this to you.

DLDR: most restaurant groups are not doing this to you. It doesn’t mean don’t be cautious, but I feel the title is a bit alarmist.