Cabbagetown eatery popular with more than diners

A man and two accomplices walked into the Cabbagetown Grill last Wednesday night and robbed customers and staff at gunpoint, according to a witness.

“They were ripping on our chains to our wallets saying, ‘Come outta your pocket,’ ” says Jason Pyle, a Cabbagetown Grill regular. “He got right up next to us, like we were standing in line for lunch.”

Pyle says he, three other customers and two bartenders were the only people in the eatery when the three men arrived at about 11:30 p.m.

He says he didn’t get a good look at the man who stood by the door or the one with the blue bandana over his face, who grabbed the bartender. But he did see the man with the gun who walked from person to person, lifting wallets. Pyle describes the man as black, 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a scraggly goatee, a blue-and-black checkered shirt and short hair.

A police report states that officers searched the area for the men, who also stole cash from the grill’s register, but couldn’t find them.

The Sept. 19 crime marked the third time this year that the hip neighborhood restaurant was targeted by thieves.

On June 6, three people eating dinner on the patio were robbed by two men, according to a police report. The report states that one man wearing a ski mask jumped the railing at 10 p.m. and did the actual robbing, while the other stood behind the railing with a shotgun.

On June 3, a waitress leaving at 2 a.m. was robbed in the parking lot, according to police. The waitress told police that “as she was digging in her trunk, the suspects walked up behind her and put what she thought was a pistol behind her head,” the report states.

“I’d like to catch them, not because of the fact they stole but the fact that they came into this neighborhood,” Pyle says. “It kind of disturbs me.” He says that the thieves didn’t scare him away. “I went back on Friday,” he says.??