At first, Thom Pham thought it was a prank.

He had just arrived in the parking lot of his restaurant, Azia, near 26th St. and Nicollet Av. S. in Minneapolis at about 3:45 a.m. Tuesday when someone grabbed him from behind.

Pham, who also owns the downtown restaurant Temple, thought some of his employees were playing a joke on him, as they often do.

Instead, someone hit him in the face with a stick and three men began to beat him. Pham, though small in stature, is a former Judo teacher, and fought back.

But another car with "four, maybe five" young men pulled up and joined the attack. Pham ran down the alley toward 25th St. but was cornered again. Someone hit him with a large brick, he thinks.

Bloodied and barely able to see, Pham eventually made it to Nicollet, where a couple of cars slowed to help. The men ran away.

Pham was hospitalized with blunt force trauma to the head, lacerations to the skull and face, broken eye socket, concussion and severe bleeding.

Weapons were used in the attack, said police spokeswoman Tammy Diedrich.

"Sticks and possibly bricks," she said.

Fifth Precinct Inspector Kristine Arneson said there have been no reports of random violence by groups of young people in the precinct. She said the attackers appear to have targeted Pham.

After being released from the hospital Wednesday, Pham said he didn't know why the six to eight young men attacked him.

The attackers did not go through his pockets, nor did they take his Mercedes, which he left running, or his brief case, Pham said.

"I don't think they were trying to rob me," Pham said

Pham is openly gay, but told friends he didn't know whether that was a motivation for the assault.

In July, he nabbed two men who had dashed on a $400 bill at Temple. They had fled the restaurant, then appeared at Azia later and tried to eat free again. Pham chased them and held them for police. The event received lots of media attention.

He said none of Tuesday's first three attackers, who appeared to be in their 20s, looked familiar.

"We're not speculating at this time," said Mike Stebnitz, Pham's former business partner. "But it was very intense and very intentional."

Because of the ferocity of the attack, Pham is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the assailants.