VIDEO: Unruly customer spits water in face of DC coffee shop manager

WASHINGTON - D.C. police are searching for a man caught on camera spitting in the face of a Northwest D.C. coffee shop manager.

After the Petworth coffee shop posted surveillance video of the incident on social media, it got a lot of traction and commenters revealed the suspect is no stranger to this kind of behavior.

The incident happened Monday afternoon at Qualia Coffee on Georgia Avenue. The owner says the man was already banned from the coffee shop for being nasty to staff.

In the surveillance video, the man walks in and is promptly told by a manager that he has been asked not to come back. After a brief conversation, the man walks away, fills a glass with water, takes a large sip and then spits it in the manager's face. Another employee and customer are also sprayed.

"After it happened, we didn't know his name or anything," said Qualia owner Joel Finkelstein. "But after it happened, we posted it to Facebook to see if we could get an ID on this guy and there was just an outpouring from the food community. People saying, 'Oh yeah, this guy has been a problem for years. He's gotten kicked out of pretty much every bar in the neighborhood, he spit on people, he's done all kinds of stuff."

The stories about the man are numerous and specific on the Facebook post and people claim to know the man's name.

Finkelstein said from his encounters with the man, he saw no outward signs of mental illness.

Police are investigating this as a simple assault. They say the man will be arrested and taken into custody when he is found.