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A pair of robbers tied up an Upper East Side restaurant owner and an employee as they held them at gunpoint in the pursuit of cash, cops said Monday.
The duo barged into Nino’s Italian Restaurant on First Avenue near East 73rd Street around 2 p.m. Sunday — one of them brandishing a silver handgun — and targeted the 65-year-old owner Nino Selimaj, police said.
Selimaj told The Post he was only in the store for a short time preparing for the Super Bowl rush when one of the robbers came in, waving the gun at him.
“He said, ‘Go down, motherf–ker, go down!’” Selimaj said. “He had a silver pistol pointed at me in the middle of the dining room. I said, ‘I’m down.’ He got on me, tied my hands.”
Selimaj said the men — who had already tied up his female employee — were shouting, “‘Where is the f–king money?’”
After tying his hands, one of the robbers then asked where the safe was.
“I said, ‘The safe is in the basement. There’s no money there,’” Selimaj said. “He stepped on my head. ‘Where is the f–king money?’”
The restaurateur, who said he had $9,000 in his pocket that he’d borrowed from one of his customers because “business freakin’ sucks,” offered up the cash.
“‘Here, in my pocket,’” he told the pair. “‘Take it. Please don’t hurt us.’”
The two men then grabbed him and forced him into the basement — one of them whacking him in the head with the gun handle, he said.
“He said to the other guy, ‘Bring me the f–king black bag,’” the restaurant owner said.
“They wanted to put the bag on my head. I said, ‘Sir, I’m 65 years old. If you hit me, I might not remember the safe combination. Please don’t hurt me. I’ll give you everything. This way, you’ll get out of here quickly.”
Luckily, the robbers listened, he said. He went to the office with them and begged to have his glasses so he could open the safe.
But one of the lenses popped out.
“The lens came out. I said, ‘I can’t see with one eye. Can I find it?’ He said, ‘Fast, a–hole!’ I found it. I opened the safe,” Selimaj said.
He said there was zero money in the safe, prompting the robber to again demand cash.
“I said, ‘The money’s in my pocket. There’s $9,000 here. There’s $300 here,’” he recalled. “They said, ‘Where’s your phone?’ I slid my phone across the floor to them. They brought the girl down. They said,’Don’t move or we’ll shoot you. Don’t call the police. We have your ID, we know where you live.’”
Selimaj decried the spike in gun violence in the city, begging Mayor Eric Adams to take charge.
“I wish everybody would do something to change the laws to give more power to the police, to check everybody, to take the guns away,” Selimaj said. “The new mayor is blaming the old mayor. It’s been over a month. He should do something. Every day, every corner, nobody’s safe.”
He said the suspects fled with his $9,000.
The story was first reported by UpperEastSite.com.
Police — who said the robbers demanded “Super Bowl money” from Selimaj — were still looking for the duo Monday.
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