Port Adelaide café owner calls out aggression after staffer knocked over
A Father’s Day lunch at Port Adelaide’s Banksia Tree Café turned ugly when an 18-year-old staff member was knocked over by a departing customer.
Owner Fabian Folghera said the incident happened on Sunday after a group, who had turned up half an hour late, were reminded of the café’s 90-minute seating policy.
“They were again reminded, ‘Hey, sorry guys, we do need the table back’, by my 18-year-old staff member,” Folghera told ABC Radio Adelaide. “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.”
Folghera later posted on social media, describing the act as an “assault from a disgruntled guest”. He added: “Violence, intimidation, or even the smallest act of unwanted contact has no place here.”
He told ABC: “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' — it's just a kneejerk reaction and I'm sick of seeing it.”
While the matter hasn’t yet been reported to police, Folghera said the café would “100 per cent back” the young employee if he chose to take it further. SA Police Assistant Commissioner Narelle Kameniar urged hospitality businesses to report incidents of aggression, saying: “Any behaviour where a person is harmed, whether that's in hospitality or in retail, is obviously concerning to us.”
Folghera stressed that disputes should be raised properly, not taken out on staff: “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.
Jonathan Jackson, 10th September 2025
