I've never stolen anything, nor do I advocate stealing. For most people, it's pretty easy not to steal. There is no difference between stealing a salad from a salad bar and opening up the cash register and grabbing a 5 dollar bill. Also, for someone who has claimed being an "adult" in this thread, stealing a salad from a restaurant is not very adult-like.
I used to say everyone has stolen something but I've met a lot of people like bobrek who really have probably never compromised themselves like that. Its commendable because I'm also sure a lot of people have justified stealing something for whatever reason
Assuming a $5.00 cost for the salad bar (probably on the low side), either way one is taking $5.00 in value from the restaurant. Stealing is stealing
If you can't figure out the difference between someone stealing salad from a bar that likely throws away thousands of pounds of uneaten food per year versus literally taking $5 in cash then I'm not going to bother explaining it to you.
At the end of the day, the restaurant is out $5 they should have had if the person had paid for, rather than stolen from the salad bar. If you can't see that stealing is stealing, then I don't know what to say about you. Again, justify all you want (they were going to throw it out anyway, nobody notices, they overcharge, etc.) it's still theft.
That's the root of the problem. Too many people think stealing is not a big deal. A "little" stealing is OK. It's not.
The people that started Jason's are friends of mine. I went to High School with their kids. They are some of the nicest people and probably don't have much concern off a few people taking off the salad bar or getting ice cream, they will tell you that it is free so it isn't stealing for that. . Jason's catered the cafeteria at the school. We had normal cafeteria food, but it was a little higher grade from some of the other schools I have been to. That and once or twice a month they would serve something off the menu (Muffaletta, or a Texas Spud, etc.). Unfortunately they did not offer a salad bar or ice cream so I had no opportunity to steal either of those. I also got food poisoning eating there about 8 years ago and don't eat there as often as I used to.
I have a friend who back in the day would go to convenience stores after the bars closed and he would go to the hot dogs and very sneakily (he wasn't) try to inhale as many of the hot dogs as he could. One time the clerk caught him and said "I would've just given them to you. They've been in there for a few days..." Good times.