Diner Owner Has Had Enough

Tara Carson was traveling through Maine with her husband and daughter and ate at Marcy’s Diner in Portland. Carson’s daughter, who is not quite two years old, had a meltdown. Darla Neugebauer, the owner of the diner, reacted to the noise. It’s not really clear what was said and done before Neugebauer lost her temper and screamed at the child. Carson complained on Marcy’s Diner’s Facebook page. Carson’s original post was deleted, but since it went viral, you can see a screenshot of it and Neugebauer’s response (in colorful language) here. Neugebauer left another response the next day, which has also been deleted, but you can see it at Buzzfeed.

The response from the public was so fierce that the local news got involved. You can hear both sides in a WCSH news report that includes a response from the Carsons.

Despite getting backlash on social media from people who claim they will never eat at the restaurant again, Neugebauer is standing by her actions. "Life's full of choices and you've got to live with all of them. I chose to yell at a kid, it made her shut-up, which made me happy, it made my staff happy, it made the 75 other people dining here happy, and they left, they may never come back, other people may not come in. Their loss really," she said.

The last few posts at the Marcy’s Diner’s Facebook page have thousands of comments and reviews, leaning heavily toward support of the diner owner’s actions. And no matter who is at fault for the brouhaha blowing up all out of proportion, commenters make it clear that they can’t stand misbehaving kids in restaurants. Neugebauer is not backing off, and has enjoyed a packed house since the Facebook posts went viral.

(Image credit: video screenshot from WCSH)

What do you think of the Marcy’s Diner conflict?

Ahh National Attention. For the record, I don’t care who was right, but take your loud kids out of the restaurant! Common Sense - Common Courtesy. As for Darla, I give her both sympathy and empathy and would eat at Marcy's anytime.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

My peeve are the parents who tell their kid they are going to do something and then don't follow through. I was in a store and a kid's in a cart and the mother was pushing it around the store. The kid was screaming and crying because - who knows? - but the mother said, over and over, "If you don't stop being naughty we are going to leave." This went on for 15 minutes. The kid still carried on with it's tantrum and the mother kept repeating her line. I was one lane over and finally piped up: "Leave! Honor your promise!" Well, she didn't but she was mighty mad at me. sheesh

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

I'm not sure you can lump all noisy kids together. To me, there's a world of difference between sharing a restaurant with a child that's tired, or upset or whatever but is being tended to to the best of the parents' ability, as opposed to a noisy brat with parents who couldn't give a damn.
Both ours were generally OK, but they had their moments, but we were always trying to deal with the problem - and generally succeeded.
Compare that to parents who just ignore bad behavior and I hope you'll see they ain't the same and shouldn't be treated the same.
Yes - the effect on people around you could be the same, but only if they're interested in surface rather than cause.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

I am conflicted about this. On the one hand, I hate noisy kids, especially those who are just spoiled brats. On the other hand, I have a three year old daughter with ASD and she may suddenly throw a fit for no reason. We can usually calm her down but it takes a minute or two, which can be one to two minutes of absolute screaming. When we can't calm her down, I usually take her out of the restaurant and window shop for a bit (dads are in-charge of girls, moms with boys, is the rule right?).

When she's ready to come back to the restaurant, I look forward to cold food and everyone else has eaten theirs. =\

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

Our oldest son was just horrible when we tried to eat out when he was around 2. We just didn't, ate home or used a drive-in or take out. He finally outgrew it and none of our 3 other children were a problem.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

I was just lucky. I had read up on how to deal with kids in public, and was ready with all kinds of plans. Then both my kids were always really good in restaurants. I guess they liked the food too much! My youngest even wanted to be a waitress for a couple of years because all waitresses were happy to see her.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

I'm sympathetic to one parent who has multiple children and one of them is screaming. But two parents? Nah, one has to take the brat outside.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

I must be in the minority when I say noisy kids just don't bother me. I mean I guess there's somewhat of a limit, like when a child is screaming just for the fun of it in a movie theater or some place like that and the parent is completely ignoring them. But even then it barely irks me, especially if the child is very young. Kids make noise, and I'm fine with that.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

Parents behaving poorly is not a new thing. I remember working in a restaurant many years ago. People with children often just didn't care. It seems that coming to a restaurant turns a switch off in their brains - suddenly, they're not at home, and the kids can run wild, throw tantrums, and create disgusting messes for the staff to clean up after they've left. I think parents may just be used to tuning it out or maybe they're really inconsiderate. Sometimes, they have no control, but that's where they have to learn how to control it. It doesn't matter why a child goes into screaming fits. It's a parent's responsibility to control it or stay at home.
In this case, the owner should have acted with more decorum, and politely told the family to tend to the child or leave. I can't really blame her for her response, but no yelling.
These parents were clueless as to how annoying their kid was, and will probably continue to inflict their dear child's tantrums with no remorse on other undeserving restaurant patrons.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

Commenting is closed.

Click here to access all of this post's 15 comments

We hope you like this article!
Please help us grow by sharing:

Get Updates In Your Inbox

Free weekly emails, plus get access
to subscriber-only prizes.

We won't share your email. You can cancel at any time.

neat stories? Like us on Facebook!

Close: I already like you guys!