Cape Cod ‘Snack Shack’ owner charged with stealing food, equipment from Plymouth schools
Every summer for more than a decade, the owner of the “Snack Shack” on Sandy Neck Beach in Sandwich would pack up his truck and head to the Cape, carrying food and kitchen equipment he had allegedly stolen from his job with the Plymouth school system, federal prosecutors said.
On Wednesday, Patrick Van Cott, 64, of Sandwich, was charged with stealing everything from hamburgers and deli meats to refrigerators and an outdoor grill while working as food service director for the Plymouth public schools.
The taxpayer-funded items were all allegedly used to turn a profit at his seasonal business on the Cape.
Van Cott was charged in US District Court in Boston with theft from a program that receives federal funds and wire fraud. He has already admitted to the charges under a plea agreement signed Tuesday, but a date has not been set for him to appear in court. His attorney declined to comment Wednesday.
The federal charges follow Van Cott’s arrest in June on state larceny charges, which are pending in Plymouth District Court. In that case, he was released on bail and ordered to stay away from the Plymouth schools. He was fired after his arrest.
Van Cott began working for the school system in 2003 and allegedly began pilfering food and kitchen equipment after opening the “Snack Shack” in 2014, prosecutors said.
The beachfront offerings of burgers and sandwiches “from the grill” actually came courtesy of the school system, prosecutors alleged. Even the two hanging chalk boards listing the daily menu were paid for by the school, according to prosecutors.
Every summer, Van Cott directed school cafeteria workers “to slice at least nine pounds of deli turkey and four and one-half pounds of deli ham once or twice per week, package the deli meats in plastic one-gallon sized bags, and place the bags in boxes labeled with his initials” in a food services refrigerator, prosecutors wrote in court documents. “Van Cott retrieved the boxes and sold the deli meats in various menu items at his Snack Shack.”
Federal prosecutors also alleged that Van Cott bought more than $18,000 worth of equipment for his business with school money between 2023 and 2025, including hot plates, top mount and undercounter refrigerators, a freezer, a grill, a fryolator, a griddle, a sandwich prep table, and a convection oven.
In May 2024, even though the school cafeteria only served pre-cooked burger patties, Van Cott allegedly purchased eight cases of raw premium burger so he could sell it at his shack, according to court records.
The alleged scheme unraveled when the assistant superintendent of the school system received an anonymous letter last May from an unidentified school employee who reported theft, according to a state court filing.
Police discovered surveillance footage in April 2025 showing Van Cott loading a stainless steel refrigerator valued at more than $2,200 into his Ford pick-up truck at a school loading dock before heading south over the Sagamore Bridge on his way to Cape Cod, according to the filing.