Brooklyn Restaurant Shooting Injures Two After Bartender Asks Customer to Leave

A customer thrown out of a Brooklyn restaurant came back Saturday night and opened fire, wounding two people including the bartender who had removed him, according to police and law-enforcement sources.

The gunfire tore through El Cerrito del Carmen Restaurant at 2024 McDonald Ave. in Gravesend at around 9:41 p.m., police said, though other reports put the time at approximately 10 p.m. When officers arrived, they found a 29-year-old man shot in the arm and a 27-year-old woman grazed on her back by a bullet. Both were transported by EMS to Maimonides Medical Center, where authorities described them as in stable condition.

The sequence leading to the shooting was straightforward and troubling: the woman, a bartender at El Cerrito del Carmen, had asked the suspect to leave for acting disorderly, according to sources. He complied initially. Then he returned. He opened fire, hit the bartender and a male patron, and fled. No arrest had been made as of initial reports, and no suspect name or description was provided by authorities.

Patrons and workers were shaken after the violence, according to accounts from the scene. The suspect remained at large, with no charges filed in available reports.

The incident puts a sharp focus on a risk that bartenders and front-of-house staff navigate regularly: the moment of confrontation with a disorderly guest. Asking someone to leave is a routine part of the job in bars and restaurants. The decision to do so, and how it unfolds, can turn on factors entirely outside a worker's control, including whether the person walks out and stays out. In this case, the bartender followed standard practice. The customer came back with a gun.

No information on the suspect's identity, a possible motive beyond the ejection, or the precinct handling the investigation was available in initial reports.