A vegan cafe in the centre of Tbilisi was shocked to find itself the subject of far-right ire after a group arrived and threw meat on patrons’ plates, leading to a public brawl.

Customers said a group entered the cafe wearing sausages around their necks and carrying slabs of meat on skewers, before attacking customers and staff.

Witnesses described the attackers as “far-right extremists”, and said the clash spilled onto the street outside after the attackers were asked to leave. Minor injuries were reported but the perpetrators fled before police arrived.

A statement issued on Facebook by the Kiwi Cafe on Monday described the incident as “an anti-vegan provocative action” accusing the attackers of being “neo-Nazis” who support “fascist ideas”.

Nazis attacked the vegan cafe wife and I founded in #Tbilisi this weekend, and it appears cops arrested the server https://t.co/TLLClCijxX — Миша Руненко (@MikeRuney) May 30, 2016

According to the statement, the attackers “pulled out grilled meat, sausages, and fish and started eating them and throwing them at us... they were just trying to provoke our friends and disrespect us.”

The statement also alleged that memberes of group had come to the neighbourhood a month earlier and asked a nearby shopkeeper whether foreigners or members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community frequented the cafe.

Launched a year ago, the cafe has become a popular meeting place for foreigners and had been showing English-language episodes of the animated sci-fi sitcom Rick And Morty when the violence broke out.

Children play atop a tank during Independence Day celebration in Tbilisi at the weekend. Photograph: David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters

Prank or politics?

Coming just three days after a march by right-wing nationalists timed with independence day celebrations, some Tbilisi residents are concerned that the cafe violence could mark the emergence of organised political actions by Georgian ultra-nationalists.

During a march through the capital, a group appeared carrying banners with the slogan “Georgians for Georgia”.



For locals, the phrase has troubling connotations, bringing back memories of the divisive policies under Georgia’s first post-Soviet president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, that led ethnic minorities to declare independence in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the early 1990s.

It remains unclear whether the meat assault was merely a prank that turned violent, or an organised political actions by Georgian nationalists spurred on by the events of the independence day celebrations.

The Kiwi Cafe has pledged to stay open and said it remained “ready to accept all customers regardless of their nationality, race, appearance, age, gender, sexual orientation, or religious views.”

A version of this article first appeared on RFE/RL