Vegan Restaurant Owners Furious Because Customer Doesn’t Want to See Their Toddler’s Butthole

Do you like drama? Well, stick with me, kids, because this is the best “ridiculous parents” story on the internet right now. There is no drama in the world like parent v. non-parent drama, and there’s no drama in the world like restaurant drama, and this story has both. Hell, this story has everything: Vegan restaurant owners, naked toddlers, elimination communication, dissatisfied customers, bad online reviews, and a yodeling five-year-old. I love this story so much I want to marry it.

It all starts with a restaurant review.

According to Wonkette, which deserves a Pulitzer for having found this delicious baby drama, Memphis has a vegan restaurant called Imagine Vegan Cafe. Not long ago, one of their regular customers left a 2-star Google review about how her meal was interrupted by a naked toddler cavorting in the dining room, and an older kid yelling at her and staring at her while she tried to eat.

“During my visit, a bare butt naked baby was running around, stood up on a table with its black they’re so dirty feet, and bent over to show me its butthole. I wish I were exaggerating,” she wrote. “This is like while I’m eating, and it’s the owners kids? An older kid came over and started yodeling and staring at me during my meal. I was SO uncomfortable. Like I get it’s a family establishment and kids do weird things, but naked baby was running around for like 15 minutes while all the workers started are just standing to the side talking and laughing over it.

As for my food, I can heat up a tofurky sausage just as well and in under half the time.”

Image: Giphy

Damn, lady. That is one hell of a restaurant review. A one-year-old breaking loose and streaking the dining room I could forgive. That could happen to anybody! But dirty feet on a restaurant table are totally unacceptable. And if it lasted more than a second and a half, that baby was not being properly supervised. (And yodeling is never OK unless you are actively wearing lederhosen on a mountain.)

This is about to get so good.

The restaurant owners had a lot of options when it came to responding to that negative review. They could ignore it. Apologizing for their temporary loss off toddler control would be good. Maybe they could offer the lady a free plate of lettuce on her next visit. But we’re dealing with a vegan restaurant owner who calls herself a “Mama Bear,” so you know she did not do any of that. Instead, she doubled down and went full-on, claws-out, “Mama Bear” all over her own Facebook page.

In a post that was later deleted, restaurant owner Kristie Jeffrey replied that reviewer Chelsea Bartley had “irritated mama bear!!!!!!!!!!!!!” She said the reviewer was banned from the restaurant and that she was about to start calling out names and photos of people who leave them bad reviews for lying about their babies.

Haters are not welcome at this vegan restaurant.

“For anyone who reads this and instantly is scared this might affect our business, I cannot begin to tell  you how much we do not care. Haters are not welcome at Imagine!!!!” Jeffrey wrote.

Sure, because not wanting butts in your face and yodeling 5-year-olds during dinner means you’re a “hater” who wants to kill animals. (Personally, I am more disturbed by the yodeling than the nudity, but both are unacceptable in a restaurant.)

Image: Giphy

Of course this story immediately went viral and the Imagine Vegan Cafe Facebook and Yelp pages were immediately overrun by people reacting to #ButtholeGate.

Some people support the Jeffreys and say toddler buttholes are totally fine during dinner and anybody who doesn’t think so must just be stuck-up kid-haters. Those people appear to be in the minority, however. Most of commenters thought the restaurant owners sounded unhinged, and said that they did not want to see buttholes during dinner either. Jeffrey had words for them, too:

“Anyone who would not dine at our restaurant because they’re (sic) could possibly be a naked baby is not someone we want to serve anyway. They are not about saving animals, they are about themselves,” she wrote to another irritated commenter.

You’re running a restaurant, not an emergency vet. People come to your place for food. Jeffrey probably thinks the health department are haters, too.

The baby is not even potty-trained.

Eventually, Jeffrey actually addressed the content of the bad review and told her side of the story.

“We have a one-year-old child who has just discovered she can undo the Velcro on her diaper. She is also currently potty training. One day last week she got out of my husband and my site (sic), took off her diaper and ran across the restaurant. She was quickly apprehended and re-dressed.”

The yodeling child was just “trying to say hello.”

Those are two totally different stories! The customer says the naked baby was cavorting and putting her feet on tables and mooning customers for 15 minutes while the staff watched and laughed. The owner describes it more like a toddler broke free and streaked across the room with her father on her heels, and that was it. The first is gross, the second is just a weird, forgivable incident that would be a funny story later.

Who do you believe? I’m with the customer, because the restaurant owners sound totally unhinged. Their website lists their restaurant hours as “11ish to 9ish,” and they take pride in being the kind of place where their children run through the dining room singing loudly. #ButtholeGate totally happened.

Also, Jeffrey told a totally different story to one of her supporters.

She says her potty-training 21-month-old occasionally just runs around without her diaper, and they don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Sure, that’s fine. In your house. It’s not fine in a restaurant.

“We have a 21 month old who is potty training and occasionally will run around without a diaper on,” she wrote. “There is nothing in the world wrong with this (Editor’s note: Except in a restaurant.) In cities across America it is becoming legal for grown women to walk around topless and just about anytime you turn on the TV you will see some sort of naked adult. (Editor’s note: Breasts are not anuses.) … And she also was leaving a negative comment because our five-year-old was trying to talk to her. God forbid a child is being friendly. … I am at the point where I no longer care what people think. Again I will reiterate the point I said before, I do not care if I am not being professional. My children come before this restaurant.”

A diaperless toddler who is not yet potty-trained just ran through the dining room? My dudes, that is a concern!

Whose side are you on? Let us know in the comments.

(Image: iStockPhoto / mel-nik)

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