{"id":131351,"date":"2025-09-09T23:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/131351\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T23:09:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:09:16","slug":"cafe-condemns-hospitality-hostility-after-young-staffer-hip-and-shouldered-on-fathers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/131351\/","title":{"rendered":"Cafe condemns hospitality hostility after young staffer ‘hip-and-shouldered’ on Father’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Port Adelaide cafe owner says aggressive behaviour won’t be tolerated following a young staff member being knocked over by a disgruntled customer on Father’s Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fabian Folghera said the incident happened on Sunday when a group was leaving his Banksia Tree Cafe, and one of them hip-and-shouldered an 18-year-old employee on the way out.<\/p>\n

Mr Folghera said the group had been advised of the cafe’s policy of limiting bookings to 90 minutes, but had arrived about half an hour late.<\/p>\n

He said they had finished their meals and were reminded of the time limit and asked to leave, but that at that point they “got a little bit upset”.<\/p>\n

“They were again reminded, ‘Hey, sorry guys, we do need the table back’, by my 18-year-old staff member,” Mr Folghera told ABC Radio Adelaide.<\/p>\n

“They got up and they said, ‘Yep, cool, no worries, thanks’, and on the way out one of the members decided to hip-and-shoulder him quite hard and knocked him over.<\/p>\n

70pc of hospitality workers have experienced abuse: survey<\/a><\/p>\n

A new University of Queensland Business School report pinpoints\u00a0structural flaws in the hospitality industry that are leading to many workers feeling disrespected and undervalued.<\/p>\n

“No-one turned back to say, ‘Oh my gosh, are you OK? What just happened?’ It was just deemed as acceptable behaviour.”<\/p>\n

Mr Folghera took to social media to condemn what he described as an “assault from a disgruntled guest” and said the staff member “was really left quite shaken up”.<\/p>\n

“Violence, intimidation, or even the smallest act of unwanted contact has no place here,” he posted on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“That kind of behaviour is absolutely not tolerated,” he later told ABC Radio Adelaide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“To really go ahead and single out that person, rather than sort of go to a manager who was visibly present and say, ‘Hey we’re not happy, we’ve been removed from our table, we feel like we’ve been rushed’ \u2014 it’s just a kneejerk reaction and I’m sick of seeing it.”Police urge businesses to report incidents<\/p>\n

Mr Folghera said while the incident had not been reported to police, the cafe would support the staffer if they wanted to.<\/p>\n

“We sort of decided it’s in his ball court \u2014 and we will 100 per cent back him,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But we have been in contact [with the group] and we have let them know that that is something we are still seriously considering.”<\/p>\n

SA Police Assistant Commissioner Narelle Kameniar said such incidents should be reported.<\/p>\n

“Any behaviour where a person is harmed, whether that’s in hospitality or in retail, is obviously concerning to us,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We would ask people to contact the police and report that.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

SA Police Assistant Commissioner Narelle Kameniar urged businesses on the receiving end of physical aggression towards staff to report it. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Mr Folghera, who said he was not at the cafe when the incident happened but had spoken to staff who were present at the time, said the 18-year-old had been working at the cafe for just over a year.<\/p>\n

He said Sunday was the busiest day the business had experienced, and that if customers had grievances, they should raise them in the proper manner.<\/p>\n

“If you have a problem with a company’s policies or something you have to understand that it’s not the person facing you that’s come up with that policy you don’t agree with,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Port Adelaide cafe owner says aggressive behaviour won’t be tolerated following a young staff member being knocked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49460,5729,64,63,91114,49013,91111,77078,91113,49090,91112,44,11457,13298],"class_list":["post-131351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-aggression","tag-allegations","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-banksia-tree","tag-cafe","tag-fabian-folghera","tag-fathers-day","tag-hip-and-shouldered","tag-hospitality","tag-knocked","tag-news","tag-staff","tag-worker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}