Videos capture wild restaurant brawl

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Security cameras captured the mayhem, an all-out brawl with fists and chairs flying.

"Thankfully, nobody got seriously hurt or injured," said  Bayou City Wings manager Max Thweatt. "When you start throwing a chair, it's a heavy wooden object in the air."

It happened late at night earlier in the week as a small group had been harassing a man at the bar. When he returned from the bathroom, he had words with a man from the group and then the fists started flying. Restaurant staff struggled to keep order and separate the groups when suddenly, one man picked up a chair and hurled it.

"Thankfully, it was late at night and there weren't any families in here." Because then it really got out of hand.

Thanks to a video posted to YouTube, what was a fight in a local restaurant viewed by only a few witnesses has developed into a brawl watched by an amount of people that would make fight promoters green with envy.

"They posted it Tuesday morning and we started getting phone calls," said Thweatt. "It virally exploded."

At this point, the owners and management of Bayou City Wings had a choice -- wait until it blows over or use the attention while they have it.. That is exactly what management is doing, encouraging people to watch the video and call police if they recognize anyone in it.

"We've already got one of these people identified as of this morning," said Thweatt. "Someone called and said, 'I know who this is. So it's helping get the video out there.'" Hopefully keeping the kind of people who would hurl chairs in a crowded restaurant out of there.

"We haven't had a decline in turnout since the event  and we want people to come out and feel safe," said Thweatt.