Louis Cozzolino, a 21-year-old TikTok user, was dining at Long Island’s Massapequa Diner in New York at around 11 pm on a Saturday night when an outspoken waitress caught his attention. The server had apparently had enough of a “creepy old guy” and decided to give the man the boot, according to The Blaze.
As the confrontation began to unfold, Louis pulled out his cellphone to record footage, not realizing that what he was about to capture would quickly go viral. According to Louis, who shot cellphone footage from one table over, the “creepy customer” was “trying to give his cellphone number to ‘underage girls,’ made ‘loud’ anti-LGBTQ slurs, and repeatedly called his server a ‘b–ch,’” the NY Post reported, but that’s not all.
The unnamed man was also accused of “staring at” the group of young girls, to whom he was “trying to solicit his phone number,” before going on a homophobic and sexist tirade. With the guy — who was seated alone —creating problems, he was moved far away from the girls, in an apparent attempt to defuse the situation, before finally being told to leave by a waitress, who Louis identified as Sondra Albert.
According to the waitress, other staff “didn’t want to wait on him, either,” so he was asked to go, the frequent patron of the diner explained, describing the events that led up to what’s seen in the now-viral video. “He was being repeatedly rude, calling her a b–ch,” Louis said. “Sondra is the nicest person ever and for her to get like that, I knew the guy was a p–ck.”
“Honestly, nobody wants to wait on you, we’re asking very nicely so please just leave,” the fed-up waitress warns the man in one of two videos Louis captured, which have now racked up millions of views on TikTok. “You’re not going to call me a b–ch, you’re not going to sit near my boss’ wife, you’re not going to call people a lesbian — you sure as hell ain’t going to look at underage girls.”
The waitress’s scolding of the man prompted a round of applause from Louis’s table. “I don’t want to look at underage girls,” the anonymous man replied, but the waitress was far from convinced.
“You’re a pedophile and freak and you deserve to be locked up in Bellevue. And, that’s all I gotta say, and I’m asking you nicely,” she told him. However, he apparently refused to leave. In the second video from the encounter, Sondra — who confirmed that it is her in the video — stopped asking nicely.
“I’ll kick your ass,” she warns. “You don’t frighten me for one minute. The way you speak about people who are lesbians and young children,” she continues before being interrupted by the man’s inaudible defense, which Sondra obviously wasn’t buying. “Oh, you’re so frigging full of s–t! Tell it to somebody who cares, you’re not wanted here!” she yelled, pointing to Louis’s table as witnesses who would back her up.
According to reports, the diner owner eventually went to the table and the police were called, prompting the man to finally leave voluntarily before the police department was able to arrive at the diner, Louis said. Although the Massapequa Diner declined to comment on the incident, according to The Post, loyal patrons were quick to say that it is extremely uncommon.
Because of their own experiences at the diner, loyal customers alleged that the man’s actions must have been problematic for him to be removed so aggressively. In fact, at least two frequent patrons said they had never seen anyone get thrown out before, let alone shouted at. Instead, the staff was described as “friendly, even to all the inebriated customers who came in after a long night out.”
I don’t know about you, but this makes me want to tip servers extremely well, especially this one. So, if you are ever in Long Island, don’t forget to stop by the Massapequa Diner and tell Sondra that she did a great job. It’s nice to know that there are people out there who stand up for the innocent and call out such despicable behavior, even if it means forgoing a much-needed tip from the “creepy old man.”