On a Monday morning in mid-April, a group of diners are shuffling in and out of the outdoor restaurant in a warehouse in Baltimore’s Calabash neighborhood.
A pair of large white vans drive up and down the street in the middle of the day, carrying an assortment of food and drinks from a chain of grocery stores, food trucks and eateries, as well as some local food.
As they move past the tables and chairs in the outdoor seating area, one of the diners, a woman named Kelly, is chatting with her boyfriend, a young man named Zach.
They have known each other for about a year, Kelly says.
But when the restaurant opened in December, she noticed that Zach had been to work at the restaurant before.
She asked him to show her around.
Zach was excited to be at the location.
The restaurant was new, but the people who work there were so friendly, he said.
He even bought a t-shirt.
The food at the Lone Star seafood market has been pretty good, Zach says.
Kelly, however, was skeptical about the food.
She didn’t want to pay a premium for it.
Zach agreed to help.
They went to the menu and ordered a whole piece of chicken wing.
After the chicken wing, the pair of men ordered a salad.
The salad came out to be a big, fluffy pile of lettuce and tomatoes.
Zach told Kelly he’d order more, so they ordered more.
Kelly ordered a steak and cheese plate, and the men ordered an entree.
When they were done, Zach told them to go ahead and pay the bill.
They ordered their meal and went home.
Kelly returned to the restaurant that afternoon to make a reservation, but Zach and Zach’s girlfriend had left to take a trip to a friend’s house.
They had left their cell phones at the table.
Kelly told Zach to call her back.
Zach hung up the phone, Kelly recalls.
The next morning, Kelly was on the phone with a different woman, who told her she was supposed to go pick up her boyfriend from work that day, Kelly said.
She was so excited, Kelly remembers thinking, I’m going to be the best diner in the world.
And she was right.
As the meal was being prepared, she ordered a second plate of chicken wings and told Zach that she had to be late.
Zach asked Kelly to wait a little bit.
Kelly said she couldn’t wait.
She took a couple of bites of the wing and took a big gulp.
She had to stop because the taste was too sweet, she says.
When she finished, she asked Zach to get the order out, but he was already sitting on the counter.
He said, I’ll do it when I get home.
The pair walked out the door, Kelly tells Vice News.
She sat at the counter for a couple more minutes before she noticed the waitress had walked in.
She called her back and asked what was wrong.
She said Zach and the other couple were just sitting around.
Kelly remembers her girlfriend asking the waitress if she could just call Zach and let him know that she was leaving.
Kelly says she said no, but she wasn’t going to go to work that afternoon.
When the waitress got on the line and asked if they needed to cancel the order, Kelly told her that she didn’t have any choice.
The waitress told Kelly that if she did cancel the chicken wings, they’d be gone.
She then called her boyfriend and told him to call Zach back.
The boyfriend called Zach and told the waitress he had to leave.
He asked Zach if he was sure that he wanted to cancel his order.
Zach replied that he couldn’t do it because he was waiting to go home and that he needed to go check his voicemail.
He didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t realize how busy he was.
Zach went home and texted his girlfriend, who was at work.
Kelly thought she was going to have to call him back.
He was texting her and said, It’s my friend Zach.
He also said, Can you come over to my house and we can go over dinner?
She thought he was joking, and then she told Zach he’d be fine.
But he said, No, I have to go.
Kelly left the restaurant and headed to her friend’s apartment.
She texted Zach, saying, I can’t wait to come over.
She also told him that if he did cancel his chicken wings for dinner, she would be happy to come get him.
Zach texted back and told her he was coming.
But before he could get in the car, Kelly heard him tell Zach, I gotta go.
That’s when she called the police.
Zach drove home and told Kelly she should call the police because he would be in trouble.
He had to get