Waitress drags goanna from Australian restaurant by the tail

A waitress at a New South Wales restaurant was busy serving a customer when a scaley situation took the venue by surprise.

25-year-old Samia Lila was alerted by a patron to a 180cm long goanna crawling across the restaurant floor.

"I looked at it and thought it was a dog at first!" Lila told Bega District News.

"But then I realised it was a goanna."

"Everyone was screaming, so I started screaming too!" Lila said.

Lila, originally from France, put a chair in the goanna's path to try to keep it from customers while she decided what to do wit h the critter.

"I was just like a kid; I thought 'I want to do it, I want to do it, I know it's bad, but it was getting close to customers'," she said.

"I wasn't scared, I like reptiles so was a bit excited."

Lila then grabed the goanna by its tail to drag it outside before it could scare customers further.

A video of the incident was uploaded to the Mimosa Wines Facebook page on Sunday and by Monday night it had been shared over 330 times and had 23,000 views.