All-You-Can-Eat Restaurant Charges for 25-Month-Old Baby

A controversy has arisen after a family of four was denied service at an all-you-can-eat Korean army stew (budae jjigae) restaurant. The family had attempted to order two servings of the stew for the adults and two servings of another menu item for their 5-year-old and 25-month-old children but were rejected.

On September 1, a post titled “Are we the unreasonable customers at the army stew restaurant?” was shared on an online community.

The post was written by Mr. A, who stated he visited the all-you-can-eat army stew restaurant with his wife and two nephews aged 5 years and 25 months.

Mr. A ordered two servings of army stew for himself and his wife and one serving of beef hot pot for the children. However, the owner refused the order stating, “We don’t accept such orders,” because they did not order army stew according to the number of people.

A man working with the owner commented, “They’re just kids, do we have to do this?” The owner retorted, “They’re clearly over 5 years old.”

Upon hearing this, Mr. A changed his order to two servings of army stew and two servings of beef hot pot. But the female owner once again refused and suggested they order army stew according to the number of people.

Mr. A explained that the children might not be able to eat army stew because it’s spicy, but the owner insisted on ordering army stew according to the number of people and said, “If you order like this, you can’t have unlimited refills.”

In the end, Mr. A and his group gave up on the unlimited refills and ordered army stew requesting, “We definitely won’t give the army stew to the kids so please prepare a separate dish for them.”

The owner then asked Mr. A to leave saying, “Customers like you are the unreasonable ones that appear on the news. We need to be selective about our customers. You’re unreasonable.”

Netizens who saw the post commented, “There’s no need to go to such a restaurant,” “I don’t see what the problem is with ordering two servings of a different menu item,” “The restaurant is at fault,” and “How much money are they trying to make by doing this,” criticizing the restaurant’s attitude.

By. Soo Jung Shin