Turkey Leg Hut co-founder charged in fight
Turkey Leg Hut co-founder Lyndell Price was accused of assaulting a man during a February bar fight amid a litany of legal proceedings involving him and the famed Third Ward restaurant, according to court documents.
Price, 42, was charged April 15 with misdemeanor assault in connection with the fight, which police said left a man unconscious and with a knee injury, at the neighboring business. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
Price, wearing an Oyster Hut shirt, appeared Tuesday in the County Criminal Court at Law No. 12 to address the charge. He sat in the back of the courtroom until his attorney, Robert Alton Jones, beckoned him to the bench.
A Houston police officer alleged that Price got into a fight with another patron at the Tipsy Lounge, down the street from Turkey Leg Hut, during the Feb. 1 clash. Another patron tried to break up the fight but Price grabbed him by the neck, “threw him on the ground,” an act that left him unconscious, according to court records.
Another witness told police that Price dragged the unconscious man out of the bar.
Jones told visiting Judge Robin Brown that the Tipsy Lounge bar brawl was not as it seemed and that a patron had threatened someone with a gun.
The alleged fight happened days before Price’s estranged wife, Nakia Holmes, announced that he and several other employees had been fired from their restaurant. Price separately said he had also been banned from the eatery in a since deleted social media post. The future of the Turkey Leg Hut has been in dispute ever since amid divorce proceedings and the filing of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in federal court.
Price declined to comment after court and referred questions to his attorney.
“From what I gather, it shouldn’t have been filed in the first place,” Jones said of the charge.
The judge ordered Price to stay away from the Tipsy Lounge and the man he allegedly hurt. She set his bail at $1,000 on the misdemeanor charge.