Ric Flair considering legal action following restaurant incident

Ric Flair says he has the money to turn Piesanos into “Ric Flair’s Italian Bistro."

Flair was involved in an incident with staff of the franchise’s location in Gainesville, Florida over the weekend. On Sunday, Flair posted to social media that he had been asked to leave the restaurant following an altercation with the kitchen manager in the bathroom.

Footage of Flair berating the restaurant's manager leaked online yesterday but does not show the altercation between him and the kitchen manager. Flair says the kitchen manager approached him in the bathroom.

“I’m like, I don’t shake hands or take photos in bathrooms," Flair said to the Gainesville Sun on Tuesday.

After this, Flair says the kitchen manager went into a restroom stall and was “texting away” minutes later. In Flair’s social media post about the incident on Sunday, he said he took issue with “The Kitchen Manager Taking Too Long In The Bathroom.”

"Any man that goes into a bathroom knows you can see into the stall," Flair continued. “I said, 'Get your a-- off there, I need to use the restroom.' "

Flair says another staff employee approached him after he left the washroom and called him a “creep” and a “peeping Tom.”

“I’m not going to tolerate that and you wouldn’t either," Flair said. "... That’s a pretty offensive remark.”

Flair then spoke with the restaurant manager about the situation, which was captured on the footage that leaked yesterday. 

"I’ll be quite honest with you, I was pissed because I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s my word against the kitchen employee and it makes no sense," Flair said. “I admit to everything I said. I have no problem with it because I was mad.”

Flair says he tipped $1000 on a tab of around $200 to two bartenders. In the video, he can be heard offering a server a $1000 tip if they told the restaurant manager he could “kiss my ass.”

Piesanos co-owner Jerry Roberts also spoke with the Sun on Tuesday. He said that no matter how much Flair tipped the staff or spent in the restaurant, they could not tolerate how he was treating others.

“It was really a matter of principle on how our team was treated and no matter how much money someone’s willing to spend, if they're not going to treat our team with respect, we just felt like that was the right thing to do," Roberts said.

"The video that has now been leaked by somebody else speaks for itself," he added.

Flair said that he is considering legal action against the restaurant, or perhaps purchasing it outright.

“I have the money to buy the restaurant," he said. "It’ll be called Ric Flair’s Italian Bistro.”