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Brawl Erupts At Memphis IHOP [Viral Video]

By Robert Jonathan
Published on: 06:22 PST, Jun 21, 2016

Two sisters who were allegedly involved in a chaotic brawl with employees inside a Memphis IHOP restaurant are due back in court in July after a court appearance yesterday.

The WWE-style encounter, complete with multiple blows and chair shots on Saturday night captured on cell phone video, is embedded below (Warning: NSFW for language and volume).

Cops charged the suspects, one of whom apparently is a waitress at that IHOP outlet, with assault and vandalism.

“The General Manager told police that employee Janika Nellums and her sister Shanika Strickland got into a fight with other restaurant employees with a baby sitting just a few feet away… Police said one suspect was even holding her nephew during the fight,” Memphis TV station WMC ActionNews5 reported.

A crying baby can be heard in the background during the free-for-all.

One of the victims and Nellums allegedly got into a work-related argument the day before, which allegedly prompted the physical confrontation, Fox13 claimed.

Along with cops, the Memphis Fire Department responded to the scene and treated one of the suspects. Two victims in the attack declined medical treatment.

The fracas resulted in about $1,000 worth of damage to the IHOP restaurant, Local Memphis detailed.

One of the suspects allegedly has two prior convictions, Fox13 claimed in a separate report.

“IHOP’s slogan is ‘No matter what time of day it is, breakfast makes you smile.’ Well, this fight left a lot of frowns on people’s faces,” PJ Media noted about the Memphis brawl.

This latest fast-food or fast-casual eatery fight again raises the fundamental question as to whether this kind of violence is occurring with more frequency and intensity across America or, in the alternative, we just find out about it more often by way of the immediacy of social media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORCL6bDS71w

Last month, for example, two female McDonald’s employees in South Carolina allegedly got into a brawl over who had to bake apple pies, and the encounter was recorded by a cell phone camera and then uploaded to YouTube.

On Mother’s Day 2016, a massive melee broke out in an Atlanta-area steakhouse when customers and employees apparently got into a beef. Again, cell phone footage quickly went viral.

Reacting to the Memphis IHOP brawl, Barstool Sports quipped that IHOP may be giving the Waffle House a run for its money in terms of extracurricular activities.

“Usually you will see customer vs. customer fights or customer vs. waiter fights. But here we have battle royale of waitresses with hardcore rules activated. High chairs and booster seats raining from the skies. Babies crying in the background. A different skirmish breaking out every minute. Chaos. Watch out Waffle House. It looks like IHOP may be trying to take your ‘come for the breakfast, stay for the brouhaha’ corner.”

The Glendale, California-based breakfast-food restaurant chain has about 1,600 outlets in the U.S. and Canada.

The corporate offices of the International House of Pancakes has issued a statement about the incident, Fox13 detailed in a follow-up report.

“IHOP nor our franchisees accept behavior in our restaurants that could be considered violent or aggressive. Our franchisee is investigating the matter and will take appropriate action as needed. We’re still trying to find out if the workers involved in the fight have been fired. The sisters go back to court in July.”

In its news coverage, Memphis TV station WHBQ quipped that IHOP does not mean the International House of Punches.

In a wholly unrelated incident at another Memphis IHOP, the death of a man who was found shot in a car outside a restaurant has been ruled a homicide by local authorities.

[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

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