Violent brawl at Pancake House in Israel goes viral

Video comes just a week after a similar, chair-throwing fight at a water park in Holon.

By AMY SPIRO
Pancake tower (photo credit: PASCALE PEREZ-RUBIN)
Pancake tower
(photo credit: PASCALE PEREZ-RUBIN)
It was the fight seen around the country.
Within hours of a violent, chair-throwing fight at a Pancake House on a moshav north of Netanya on Saturday, a video of the incident began to go viral on social media and WhatsApp.
Footage of the brawl shows several men shouting at the entrance to the Beit Yannai restaurant, which was full of diners on a Saturday afternoon. The fight then escalates to punches, throwing of tableware and eventually throwing chairs, stools and highchairs as a man appears to be forced out of the busy eatery.

In an interview Sunday morning on Channel 12, a waitress said the argument began when one man demanded she clear a table for him immediately.
“He started immediately shouting loudly ‘yalla, yalla, clear a spot already,’” recalled Marina Potts, a waitress at the Pancake House. “I told him that wasn’t going to happen, and he threatened to hit me.”
Potts said the man then hit her, and the brawl quickly escalated, with several of her coworkers coming out to defend her and the man in question throwing tableware and vases from the eatery next door, and then chairs and stools.
The owner of the Pancake House branch, Menachem Wallerstein, said the man was not arrested or detained on Saturday, but that police later visited the eatery to gather testimony and video footage.
Police said on Sunday afternoon that they arrested a 36-year-old man in connection with the incident.
The violent brawl on Saturday is just the latest in a series of fights that have broken out at public places around Israel. A week ago, several young men were filmed attacking security guards at the Yamit 2000 Water Park in Holon, in an incident that also included chair throwing.


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