Richie Notar — the globe-girdling co-owner of the Nobu restaurant chain — will be more careful mixing sleeping pills with alcohol after a meltdown on the red-eye American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York on Monday night.

Queens-born Notar, who was Steve Rubell’s assistant at legendary disco Studio 54, starting behaving erratically “somewhere above Kansas,” according to a fellow passenger in business class. Notar, the managing partner of the three Nobu restaurants in New York and the one in London, was restrained with flex cuffs placed around his wrists by the crew.

Notar, whose Nobu partners include Robert De Niro and Drew Nieporent, was acting normally when he boarded the plane, and “even said hello to [astronaut] Buzz Aldrin,” our source said. But hours into the flight, his demeanor changed. “His arms were flailing and he was shouting. Everyone was looking at him,” said the witness.

“A little while later, the woman seating next to him had to be moved to first class after claiming that Richie had made ‘inappropriate hand gestures’ at her. Two women behind him were moved as well,” our in-flight source related.

“A male flight attendant was seated in the aisle seat next to him trying to calm him down, but Richie was just gesticulating wildly. Finally, the crew managed to get a pair of flex cuffs on him, though he tried to bite them off.”

After landing at JFK, Notar was escorted off the plane by three NYPD police officers and eventually released. A source at the Port Authority confirmed that two complaints were filed but both were dropped.

Reached for comment, Notar said he had taken a pill and downed a glass a wine and was “out for the count.”

“I just remember sleeping,” he says. “I guess I have to be more careful, or there go my upgrades. I have to learn not to try to make it down the aisle to go to the loo in turbulence.”