Around 8 a.m. the Sunday before last, the bagel shop SPoT! in Norwood was bustling with dozens of customers. Behind the counter, owner Perry Makarios was making his signature hand-baked bagels when he turned around to an odd sight. The discarded remains of a bagel sandwich — half-bitten pieces, the container it came in, and crumpled napkins — were strewn across the ground.
Makarios has been in the business for 35 years. He knew this was no accident.
“You can tell this stuff is thrown,” he said.
Employees cleaned up the mess, but at the end of the day, the 52-year-old looked over his surveillance footage to find who was responsible. What he saw confirmed his suspicions. Video showed a middle-aged man picking his bagel sandwich apart and tossing portions onto the floor before brusquely shoving the container, full of food, aside. Its contents spilled out. He looked annoyed, while the woman next to him appeared startled.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Makarios said. “I had to watch it like 12 times to really wrap my head around it.”
The clip, which he promptly uploaded to Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, has now been viewed millions of times, sparking outrage among commenters, most of whom expressed support for the shop.
“Please if you know this person tell him to learn some manners,” the caption reads.
The cashier told Makarios she remembered the customer. After the man placed his order for a couple of bagel sandwiches, which are cooked on the spot, she informed him the wait would be around 15 minutes, Makarios recalled. It was a few minutes longer. When his name was called out, the man approached to collect his food. He was visibly unhappy. She apologized, noting how busy it was, and moved onto the next patron, Makarios said.
The man then, apparently, took his anger out on the meal. His eyes remained locked on the cashier as he chucked his purchase, Makarios added.
While it’s generally regarded as “taboo” in the industry to post anything that casts customers in a negative light, Makarios said, the man’s behavior was so rude that he was compelled to share the video to show people that such conduct “is not acceptable” — “not only in my restaurant, but society in general.”
“We have really, really nice customers. We love our customers. But there’s one or two people like this that make it really difficult,” he said. “They’re so accustomed to treating the service people in any way they want to.”
And in the vast majority of cases, they just have to sit back and take the hostility, Makarios said.
“But there is a fine line that you have to draw,” he added.
Makarios said he contacted police about the incident, but they said it was more of a civil matter. But the benefit of posting the video on social media, he said, is that people are inclined to weigh in and hand out their verdict.
They have indeed. In recent days, the customer’s actions have been widely condemned, and the bagel shop has received overwhelming support, including from former Patriots captain David Andrews. Other restaurant owners have also reached out, saying the 39-second clip encapsulates the realities of the industry today, he said.
Makarios said he’s received hundreds of thousands of messages. He didn’t expect the video would go viral, but said he believed it struck a chord. The alleged customer did not respond to a request for comment.
“Hopefully, he learns a lesson, or anybody else who’s deciding to trash a restaurant,” Makarios said. “If you have a problem in a restaurant, you just go online and write a bad review. Or you don’t spend your money there.”
Since the pandemic, the behavior of some customers has gotten noticeably worse, he said, but situations like this are “very, very rare.”
“Thank God he didn’t have an altercation with an employee,” he said. “Because he was looking for problems.”
Makarios and his wife, Anna, have been running SPoT! together for almost two decades.
Overall, he said, the incident and ensuing feedback has made them more grateful for their “great customers” — many of them regulars they know by name and some whom they watched grow up over the years.
“They have been supporting our business since day one, so it’s a good feeling,” he said. “When that alarm goes off at 4 o’clock in the morning, I don’t hit that snooze button. I get right up and come to the store and make bagels.”
Shannon Larson can be reached at shannon.larson@globe.com. Follow her @shannonlarson98.