John Bolaris Banned From Dear Daphni
The ban comes after an alleged incident on Wednesday night.
John Bolaris (or his doppelgänger) at Dear Daphni on Wednesday night (photo by Ragini Verma)
Does John Bolaris have a doppelgänger? That would seem to be what Bolaris wants us to believe. The former TV weatherman turned real-estate agent has been banned from the popular Rittenhouse Square restaurant Dear Daphni, stemming from an alleged incident just after 9 p.m. on Wednesday night. Two sources in Dear Daphni management confirmed to Philly Mag that Bolaris was there, as does the woman at the heart of the alleged incident. As for Bolaris, “I wasn’t even there!” he insisted to me on Thursday morning.
So what is going on here?
Ragini Verma, a professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, went to Dear Daphni solo on Wednesday night for some refreshments and to read a book at the bar.
“I’m a professor,” says Verma.”So this is what I do. You can see me at bars and restaurants all over Center City with my laptop or a book I’m reading.”
While sitting at the bar, Verma says, a man came and asked her if the seat next to her was taken. (That’s the guy in the photo above, who is wearing a bracelet downright similar to one Bolaris is seen wearing in many photos). She moved her things and let him sit next to her. Verma claims that the man kept trying to get her to high-five him, but she had a wine glass in one hand and a book in the other. He persisted, so she high-fived him. “I am a billionaire,” she claims he told her. “I am trying to be nice to you.”
Later, while she was eating and reading, she claims the man in the photo leaned over and kissed her on her bare shoulder, and that he then tried to kiss her on the neck. She remembers screaming, telling the bartender that she had been forcibly kissed. “Oh calm down,” she says the man sitting next to her told her. “Don’t be so dramatic. I was just trying to be nice to you. What’s a little kiss?”
“I grew up in India,” Verma tells Philly Mag. “And this is the exact kind of thing that happens to women all the time in New Delhi. I thought I was safe here. I guess I am not.”
Verma posted a photo of the man with a description of the alleged incident on Facebook last night. She got his first name from employees, who she says told her his name was John. It wasn’t until hours later when people started to see the photo on Facebook and state that this John was John Bolaris. “I had no idea who John Bolaris is,” Verma says. “To me he was just a drunk guy at the bar going too far.” She’s since watched videos of Bolaris and insists the look and voice are all the same, so she’s filing a police report against Bolaris for what she says was indecent assault.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bolaris says. “Some people just want the attention, I guess. Like I said, I wasn’t even there.”
This all comes less than a year after John Bolaris got kicked out of a Rittenhouse Square bar.
UPDATE 6/26/2025 12:15 p.m.: After I published this story, I received a call from John Bolaris who told me that he was, in fact, at Dear Daphni last night. He claims he did nothing wrong.
