By now, you’ve seen the video (opens in new tab). A belligerent patron, apparently wasted from boozing all day at Santa Con, grabs the hair of a bartender at Hayes Valley restaurant Hazie’s. He escapes. Then the patron rushes toward the barkeep, who extends his leg into her path. Splat.
A few weeks later, Hazie’s fired Miguel Marchese for tripping the customer. It was only the latest in a series of mishaps and tragedies for the bartender and aspiring model, who last year lost the ability to eat due to an H. Pylori stomach infection and made headlines (opens in new tab) as the victim of a New York City real estate scam.
But Marchese, 25, isn’t one to dwell on the past and is focused on recovering his health so he can pursue a modeling career in Los Angeles. In the meantime, he’s trying to figure out how to get justice — not against his assailant, Shireen Afkari, who lost her job and spent a night in the drunk tank, but against his former employer. He retained a lawyer Wednesday.
In a conversation with The Standard, Marchese opened up about the incident and its aftermath, the experience of going viral, his year from hell, and the surprising outpouring of love from strangers online.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
It’s been a hectic start to the year for you. How are you doing?
People keep asking me this, and, you know, things could be worse. I think I’m doing OK.
Walk me through what happened the night of Dec. 13?
It’s busy. It’s Santa Con. She comes in with her boyfriend. They get seated at the table, and they’re very verbally abrasive with one of the servers. She demands to see the manager, and the manager goes over to figure out why she’s so upset. I don’t know exactly what they say to each other, but [the manager] takes back the cocktails I had just made for them. Next thing you know, [the woman] runs into the kitchen, and she’s screaming at the top of her lungs, saying that she just got sexually assaulted at Hazie’s.
The hostess is like, “You can’t be back here.” She slaps the hostess’ hand, and then the manager comes behind the bar. She’s following him, and he goes behind me, like I’m his shield. Her phone’s out. I can’t speak that night because I’m sick, I have laryngitis. And then she leaves the bar, and then that’s where the video starts. It’s so chaotic.
She slaps one of the bussers who’s filming her, and she tries to lunge at the server, Michaela, and tries to choke her. And Michaela just body-slams the girl to the ground. The manager is so inept. I was like, OK, we need to get them out of the building. The police were already called, but I was like, she could seriously hurt someone. She could pick up a glass and smash someone’s head. I’ve seen things like that.
We take them outside. The other bartender, who has just gotten off the clock, takes the boyfriend out by the neck. He leaves me the girl, because I’m the gay one, and it just looks better. So we take them out, and we’re about to let her go, and she weaves her hand around my hair really, really tight, and I have to bend over. She drags me for like a minute — my friend’s like, “Can you please let go of his hair?” — and she starts kicking me. I have to kick her back. And not only is she glued to my hair, her boyfriend is glued to her. He won’t let go of her. So they’re trying to get the boyfriend off the girl, and they’re trying to get the girl off my hair, and none of the boys can fucking do it. So then I grab her phone, and I throw it, and she lets go, and I turn to go back inside.
I think she thinks I had her phone on me, because next thing I know, I turn around, and she’s sprinting at me. People love to analyze the situation as if there’s an HR protocol for the moment, or I’m calculating what the best optics are for me. But I felt like she was coming for me, and I just got my hair pulled out. I don’t know what she’s gonna do. So, yeah, I tripped her, and she was fine. I was just like, the situation needs to be neutralized, and I’m not gonna fucking punch the girl.
It seems like the woman was leading the charge. What did you make of her boyfriend’s involvement?
Well, he definitely does not wear the pants in that relationship. He was quite subservient, I would say. Not one time did he say, “Shireen, stop, let go of his hair.” Even after she fell, she bounced up and told him to be a man. He does that subtle little push, and he’s like, “Guys.” Guys? You did this! You reaped this situation. So, pity him I do not. I’m just curious if they’re still engaged.
Would you want to see charges pressed against her?
No, not at all. People keep asking me that. Humans, we’re not perfect. We fall short. We make mistakes. But I think everyone has a chance for redemption. She already lost her job and is going to have to, like, re-image herself, and hopefully she can make it back from that.
I’m not a vindictive person. I literally have to go back to New York next week for the [real estate scam] trial, so I don’t need another lawsuit. It’s too stressful.
I wish her well. Maybe there will be a point where she can come out in, like, five years and be a motivational speaker. Like, “Five years ago, I was this person. I was at my lowest.” And she can save herself — people love a good redemption story.
Honestly, if she just came out with a video right now apologizing for her actions — and even saying, “Miguel didn’t deserve to get fired” — she would save herself. We could go on tour together, you know?
Speaking of lawsuits, are you going to sue Hazie’s?
[At this point, a PR professional named Jason Galisatus, whom Marchese hired and was listening to our conversation via phone, interjected, saying Marchese is “planning to take legal action in some form.”]
When you were fired, Hazie’s offered you a $5,000 severance package if you agreed not to talk to the media or lawyer up. Why didn’t you accept it?
Because it’s wrong. I’m not gonna be pushed into a corner and my hands tied behind my back for a mere $5,000. The number itself is just embarrassing. I listened to my gut.
You got scammed by a fake landlord last summer in New York. Do you think you have bad luck?
No, I don’t think I have bad luck. When you look up my name, people might conclude something like that. I think it was good luck that it happened to me, because I was also someone who was going to pursue justice and not let that person get away with it. [Nick Fuelling, who allegedly posed as a landlord and collected rent on an apartment he did not own] had a previous criminal record in California and was indicted for grand theft and larceny. He was indicted in SF, actually, and I knew that if it didn’t happen to me in New York, the other 13 people that were scammed probably wouldn’t have been able to navigate those waters.
I fought really hard to have that case heard. Initially, the police were like, “It’s just a small claims court issue.” And I was like, no, it’s not, like, I’m literally gonna be homeless in a second. I’ve always had a lot of adversity in my life, and you just have to be resilient and gritty and just keep moving forward. I think that’s the only reason I haven’t fallen apart yet.
There’s been an outpouring of support for you on the internet. Someone called you “the SF baddie right now.” Were you surprised by the attention?
I was. I just posted [the video of the Hazie’s fight] on my own Instagram story once I clocked out of work. I was like, “Oh, my God, another day in hospitality.” And someone screen-recorded my story, I don’t know who it was, and then I woke up the next day, and people were like, “You’re on Reddit.” People were messaging me from all over. It’s, like, warmly overwhelming.
Is it stressful to go viral?
Well, I already had the New York thing. So I kind of had a pre-training on how to deal with things, although that wasn’t as intense. But for a while in New York, people would be like, “I saw you on the news.” I’d walk in the park, and people were like, “You just lost all your money. You’re like, homeless.”
But obviously, [the Hazie’s video] has exploded, so it’s a little stressful sometimes. When I’m walking on the streets, people will stop and ask me, “What’s the whole story?” You tell the story once, it’s funny. But the 10th time, when I’m just trying to do my workout, I’m like, OK, you guys.
Most people’s reactions are really warm. But there’s always that 0.1% of people who are going to be against you. I got really hateful messages in Farsi. [Marchese’s assailant is of Persian descent.] They were like, “I’m gonna come to Hazie’s. I’m gonna rape you. I’m gonna shoot you.” I have the screenshots. I had to translate it on ChatGPT, and it was like, “You fucking faggot, I’m gonna blow you up with military weapons.” So I was nervous for a quick second, but then my friend was like, “Don’t worry. I think none of these people actually live in the Bay.”
You model in addition to bartending.
I’m an aspiring model, yeah. When I grew up, beauty was very Eurocentric, and so I never imagined I could be a model. I went to USF for finance, and in my junior year, a scout in New York was like, “You should be a model.” I was like, I don’t know, I feel like you could use a nose job or something. But I got a lot of encouragement from a lot of people in the industry. They’re like, “You don’t belong in San Francisco. You need to work in editorial fashion. Go to New York or go to L.A.” After I graduated, I spent a gap year here trying to navigate what I wanted to do, and I was like, you know what? I’m gonna take the leap of faith and go to try that. But then my health and the rent scam kind of deterred that.
Are you thinking of going back to New York?
So I’m only here for a health reset, for sure. But I think once I finish everything, I might do L.A., because I don’t do well in cold weather. Also, I think New York’s amazing, but my only experience in New York was five months of hell: being homeless, sleeping on the floor, having H. pylori.
The reason I brought up modeling is that you’ve gotten a ton of online attention. Has any of the publicity led to modeling opportunities?
Not yet, but I have gotten a lot of follows from people who work in the industry. I messaged someone who followed me the other day and I was like, “I’m so honored that you followed me.” They were like, “Well, you look like an editorial fashion model. If you’re ever in L.A., we should collab.” But nothing formal from a brand.
I also haven’t had time to capitalize on that. People are like, you should reach out to this company, you should reach out to this agency. I’m like, I have a lot on my plate right now.
What’s going on with your health?
I think we’re reaching greener pastures now. I learned I had H. Pylori in May, and it had metastasized for a whole year before I caught it. It burrowed really deep into my stomach lining, and it’s scary because H. Pylori can turn into stomach cancer. I was very thin, and I thought I just had a really high metabolism, but it was because I wasn’t breaking down food and absorbing nutrients. Last year, I was moving out of my apartment, and I was sick for months. I couldn’t really eat. I was throwing up. I asked ChatGPT, and it was like, you either have cancer or you have H. Pylori. So I went to get an H. Pylori test, and they were like, “Oh, my God, your whole stomach is compromised.”
I got on really strong antibiotics and moved out of my apartment the same day, because I had already scheduled my move to New York. But with all the stress, my stomach wasn’t healing. So I wasn’t eating much in New York — the only thing I was eating for two months was carrot cake, because sugar doesn’t ferment in the body, it just goes into your bloodstream. I literally had 4% body fat. I was snatched, though. I was very snatched.
But I’m doing a lot better. I just conquered eating garlic.
When are you hoping to move to L.A.?
Hopefully by summer. I have an appointment in April with a gastroenterologist, and hopefully she’ll be like, your stomach is strong enough, and you can endure a healthy amount of stress.
Are you going to try to get another bartending job in the meantime?
I just worked at August Hall these past two days, so I made enough money for rent. But I’m over bartending. I bartended my whole undergrad to put myself through college. It’s very taxing. The more time I spend bartending, the more I feel like I’m not starting my life.
I don’t know what will happen this next month. Maybe I’ll just do OnlyFans. Someone told me I should do that, but I don’t know. I’m old-fashioned.