Botanica Bar Trashed By Bottle Throwing Drunks

A tipster contacted Eater to report "a pretty wild story about a mêlée that occurred Saturday night at a bar in the LES." Ears perked, we reached the tipster by phone to get the story, which goes like this:

At about 2 AM Sunday, I headed into Botanica Bar on Houston with some friends and went to the bar to order drinks. There was a group of about of about 8 guys who definitely looked like they were from another borough and were pretty drunk that were also ordering drinks, but the bartender refused to serve them because they hadn't left him one tip the entire night.

That's when things got a little bit crazy.

Our tipster continues:

The guy who tried to order the drinks picked up whatever bottles he could find on the bar and began firing them into the back wall and smashing the mirrors and bottles of booze on the bar. He stopped after about a minute, but then all of a sudden the rest of the people he was with started throwing glasses and bottles, smashing every bottle of booze behind the bar. The bartenders were completely covered with liquor.

The security staff was just staring at the guys, kind of in shock at what they were seeing. I bent over to try and shield my friends who I was with and got smashed in the face with a glass that must have been coming at me at 100 mph. I was bleeding a lot. I went outside and someone was nice enough to give me a towel. Then the guys who threw the bottles surrounded me outside and I thought they were going to jump me. I had to convince them that I was just in the bar and got hit and they left me alone. We waited for an ambulance and the cops to come but they never did, and finally I got into a cab and went to a hospital to get stitched up.

Our brave tipster got 10 stitches above his eye and was told by the doctor that he was lucky he wasn't blinded in the melee. Botanica's owner got in touch with the victim who tells Eater that "he's been extremely apologetic and helpful. I'm sending him the photos and he is willing to cover my medical bills and other expenses."
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Botanica Bar

47 Houston St., New York, NY