02 Dec Dallas Restaurant Owner Who Scolded Guests For Twerking Stands His Ground

A rant by a frustrated restaurant owner recently went viral and caused a conversation about where it’s acceptable to…well…twerk. On Sunday (November 29) evening, things got heated at True Kitchen + Kocktails, a Dallas eatery that opened back in August. In a clip that quickly circulated on social media, attorney and restaurant owner Kevin Kelley is seen and heard scolding his patrons after they were enjoying the DJ a little too much. There are multiple reports that people stood on chairs and cushions as they twerked to the music, but Kevin wasn’t having any of it.

“I invested a lot of money into buying this building and developing this concept so Black people can have somewhere nice to go to,” Kelley said in the clip after asking for the music to be shut off. “But all this twerking and [expletive], take it to [club] Pryme, take it to Pink, because we’re a restaurant.” For those who didn’t like his rules, Kevin added that they could “get the [expletive] out of my restaurant” and told them to “get out because I don’t need your money.”

The video was shared over one million times and garnered mixed reactions. Some people believed that he was overreacting while others, including many of Kelley’s fellow restaurant owners, supported his remarks. His critics commented that if he didn’t want people to dance, he shouldn’t play music that encourages that behavior. The following day, Kevin Kelley returned to social media to apologize for his “poor choice of wording.” However, he is unwavering in his stance.

“The fact that we have music at our restaurant doesn’t mean that you can stand on our seats, lean on glass, and twerk,” Kelley told reporters. He added that he attempted to politely tell the guests not to dance and twerk, but they continued to do so. “This is a restaurant, we don’t have a dance floor, and these were the only ladies who ever acted that way. This is a less than one percent situation.”

He did ask a handful of his guests to leave. “They didn’t have any respect for us or the other customers, so it was necessary,” he said, mentioning that he now wishes he didn’t use profanity during his rant. “But if that’s the only thing people are caught up on, they should consider the behavior of the guests in the first place. We’ve created a restaurant that’s here to serve the community. We created 70-plus jobs during a pandemic. Ninety-nine percent of our guests are fantastic, and we love them. We are not going to have their experience ruined because we have a few guests who want to stand on furniture and twerk. We’re not the restaurant for that.”

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