I’ve dined at this restaurant several times, but won’t again after tonight. The food is decent and the service is passable, though the high prices are justified by neither, but the biggest problem I had came from the restaurant’s inability to protect their patrons from aggressive and violent behavior.

During my meal, my friend and I were interrupted by an altercation at the bar between a man and his wife. He was visibly intoxicated and began getting physically aggressive and verbally violent towards his wife. This continued for several minutes to the point that we felt we had to call over a server to inform him of what was happening.

Eventually the waitstaff asked him to leave, but during a conversation with the general manager, Alena Aaron, I discovered that this is not a standalone occurrence. According to her, they are regulars and his violent behavior is regular as well. She said that they have called the police on him before and kicked him out several times, but that they will still continue to serve him “every night” (her words), despite knowing where that alcohol will lead.

When questioned about why she would continue to supply an abusive man with alcohol, putting both his wife and the rest of the restaurant in potential danger of his outbursts, she said that that’s “just the way their relationship is.” I asked when they ask him to leave, and she said that they ask him to leave when he gets violent… after drinking.

Alena told my friend and I that they continue to serve him because sometimes they appear to be happy. Her myopic perspective enables regular nights of violence simply because she cannot comprehend that abuse isn’t linear, and for some reason she finds it extremely difficult to understand why sober, happy men shouldn’t be served alcohol if it is a known fact that that alcohol will make him violent.

In other words, she is continuously filling a cup with water, watching the volume rise, and then acting surprised when it spills.

Personally, I’m not comfortable financially supporting an establishment that knowingly gives space to violent behavior on a nightly basis. I think it speaks to the safety of the atmosphere, knowing that a violent and drunken man could be there on any given night, and it speaks to the character of both the business and the manager, Alena Aaron.