A Melbourne cafe has shared confronting CCTV footage of a woman appearing to deliberately knock a plate into the face of a waitress, leaving the staff member with a chipped tooth.
La Vallee in Essendon posted the video online as it appealed for help identifying the woman over what it described as “abhorrent behaviour”.
The incident happened outside the cafe on Keilor Road last Friday at about 1pm. In the footage, the woman, who is wearing sunglasses, appears to narrowly avoid the waitress before suddenly knocking plates from her hands. The cafe said the woman then continued walking down the street.
In a social media post, the business said: “We are beyond shocked at this abhorrent behaviour of this grown woman. If you know her please send us a private message.”
It added: “This incident led to one of our beautiful staff members CHIPPING THEIR TOOTH from the plate she pushed into her face.”
The cafe also called on the local community to help. “We love being part of the community in Essendon, and we hope our followers can share, tag and suggest this to local friends so we can get some justice AND hold this person accountable.”
The video drew strong reactions online, including from Australian billionaire Adrian Portelli, who said: “This behaviour needs to be stamped out. It doesn’t belong here.”
Support also came from a local Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym, gforcebjj, which offered help to the injured waitress. In a message online, the gym said: “This may not be much, but we would like to offer your injured staff member a 12-month self-defence membership free of charge.” It added: “This was very disturbing.”
Another nearby business, Beauty on Rose, said it would review its own security footage and bring any relevant material to the cafe.
