Sometimes saying "you don't know" in reference to a crime you've committed isn't a lie — even if it concerns a statue of Pinocchio and his long nose.

Gepetto's Italian restaurant at Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills recently reported its much-loved statue of the puppet had been stolen from out the front of the premises for a second time.

But unlike last time it happened, when a social media campaign prompted its return by a group of apologetic and hungover lads, its apparent thieves admitted to the crime but did not know where Pinocchio was.

In short, they were so drunk they could not remember where they left him.

Gepetto's owner Domenic Romeo told ABC Radio Adelaide that he arrived to work on Saturday morning the week previous to find that Pinocchio, who stood at the feet of a statue of his carpenter creator Geppetto, was missing.

"So we posted it up on Facebook and said that we had the [CCTV] footage and what not ... and the support was overwhelming," he said.

"18,554 people looked at that post, it was unbelievable."

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On Wednesday morning, Mr Romeo arrived at work to find a posted letter had arrived that contained $500 in cash and a long letter of apology from the culprits explaining it as "a drunken prank".

The anonymous letter said:

"Hopefully with this money you can search for him and find him because we have no idea where we actually left him."

He said the authors of the letter sent a photocopied version and not the original.

"I think they were scared," Mr Romeo laughed.

"They didn't really want their fingerprints on the letter."

Mr Romeo said a woman called Candice from Nuriootpa had offered them a "new Pinocchio", which was "slowly making his way home up to Hahndorf."

But Mr Romeo's story on the Breakfast show caught the attention of Hahndorf Accommodation Group general manager Simon Dwyer.

Pinocchio was found in a bed of lavender on the main street in Hahndorf. ( Supplied: Simon Dwyer )

Mr Dwyer rang in to say he had found the missing Pinocchio in a bed of lavender at the front of their Haus Studio Apartments about a week ago but did not know where he came from until today.

"I'd called one of the maintenance boys and said he really shouldn't be laying in the lavender hedges there," he said.

"He'd lost an arm and a bit of a foot, so we sobered him up and put him behind the water tank until we got an idea where he came from and who the owner was.

"We're not after any sort of a ransom. We'll actually pay you to take him back."

Mr Romeo added that another gentlemen heard him talking on the Breakfast show and contacted Gepetto's to offer them a third Pinocchio and was bringing it to them from Victor Harbor.

"I guess we're just going to have more than one out there ... I think we're going to run out of room."

Mr Romeo said they called the restaurant Gepetto's because it was the first name that came into their heads when they established the business in 2015.

He said the two statues out the front really made the place and he hated arriving to work in the morning to find one missing.

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The first time Pinocchio was stolen was a Saturday night in 2016. The restaurant's subsequent social media post prompted a woman to ring them up the following day and say, "I think my son stole your Pinocchio".

"I said, 'Why would you think that?'," Mr Romeo recalled.

"She said, 'There's a Pinocchio statue sitting in my loungeroom'.

"Apparently it was another drunken prank among young boys. They got a little bit out of hand and they were really sorry.

"But the mum drove them down to the restaurant with the statue, as hungover as they were, and made them bring it in."

Mr Romeo said he understood that young people could participate in "stupid behaviour" but wanted them to leave the statues alone in future.

"It's the sort of thing that gets you riled up because you get attached to these things," he said.