AUGUSTA, Maine -- A real-life Hamburglar has struck at a Maine McDonald's.

Police say a young man, seemingly inspired by the pattie purloining character once featured in McDonald's advertising campaigns, ran between a car and the takeout window at the Augusta restaurant Sunday night as an employee handed a bag of food to a driver.

A witness flagged down an officer leaving a nearby convenience store.

Lt. Christopher Massey, acting on a description of the hungry thief, found him in the parking lot of a rival fast food restaurant diving into a McDonald's bag.

Massey tells the Kennebec Journal the suspect swore and ran into the woods. He was never caught.

Massey says the three young men who had their food stolen didn't know the burger thief.

McDonald's replaced the stolen food, worth about $20.