Key Takeaways
- Hard Rock Cafe employee Nicky Roberts says a male customer twice attacked her at the Miami Bayside Marketplace location after she told him to stop eating lemons and limes from an employee-only station, leaving her with a concussion, bruising, and a broken tooth.
- Roberts says she warned her manager after the man cursed at her and claimed PTSD, but he was allowed to remain and later violently shoved her to the floor on camera, with no staff intervening as he walked out.
- With Miami police still searching for the suspect and no arrest made, Roberts is sharing the viral surveillance footage to help identify him and push back against what she calls a growing normalization of violence against women.
A Hard Rock Cafe employee says a customer attacked her twice inside the chain’s Miami restaurant—and walked out after management had already been warned about his behavior. The server, identified in local reports as Nicky Roberts, suffered a concussion, bruising, and a broken tooth during the assault at Bayside Marketplace.
Now, surveillance footage is circulating online as Miami police scramble to identify the man.
The blowup reportedly started over drink garnishes. Roberts said she caught the customer eating lemons and limes from an employee-only station and told him to stop. “What do you want me to do, b*tch? Spit it out?” he allegedly fired back. Roberts immediately alerted her manager.
The customer then reportedly complained that he was a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and “doesn’t let any woman talk to him like that.” He moved away from the bar—but returned roughly 30 minutes later.
That was when the confrontation turned violent. Surveillance video shows the man marching toward Roberts and launching her backward. “He took his hand, both hands, and from my collarbone area, my neck, and shoved me down to the floor,” she told Local 10 News. “I literally flew back and hit the rack with my head.”
Roberts said she got up expecting someone to stop him. No one did. “I looked around and like, ‘OK, nobody is going to chase after the guy,’” she said.
So Roberts chased him herself, pulling out her phone to photograph his face as he headed for the exit. She said the man turned around, slapped the phone from her hand, struck or grabbed her near the face and neck, and shoved her down again.
Roberts hit her head a second time—and immediately realized her tooth was broken. She later underwent emergency dental work and was diagnosed with a concussion.
The attack left her too frightened to return to her job at the Hard Rock Cafe. Bayside Marketplace is one of downtown Miami’s busiest waterfront shopping and entertainment destinations.
The search widened after Michael McWhorter, better known online as TizzyEnt, posted the security footage and asked his followers, “Bayside Miami, FL. Who is he?” McWhorter alleged that police questioned members of the customer’s party, including his wife, but they refused to identify him. Authorities have not publicly confirmed that account.
Miami police said officers responded to the Hard Rock Cafe after receiving an assault report, but no arrest had been made as of this writing. Detectives had also not publicly named a suspect.
Roberts wants the viral footage to accomplish what did not happen inside the restaurant: stop the man from getting away. “It’s become a trend for this violence on women, and it’s kind of being normalized,” she told 7News. “I just don’t want to let another one of these people get away with that.”
Anyone with information can contact Miami police at 305-603-6640 or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
