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- A diner says a Georgia restaurant tried to charge her table $50 per bill because of their kids' behavior.
- The owner said her kids were "too loud" and running around, she told Today.
- The restaurant has gone viral because of its surcharge "for adults unable to parent."
A diner claims a restaurant in rural Georgia tried to charge her table $50 per bill after the owner complained that their kids were "too loud."
Toccoa Riverside Restaurant in the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Georgia lists an "adult surcharge" on its menu, which it describes as "for adults unable to parent."
The restaurant has gone viral after a photo of the menu was posted on Reddit, sparking debate about whether it's fair to charge diners for their kids' behavior.
Lyndsey Landmann, who lives in Florida, told Today that she visited the restaurant with her husband and four other couples earlier this month. Between them, they had 11 kids with them, ranging from three to eight years old, she said.
"The kids were sitting at one end of the table and they were being so good," Landmann told Today. "I even commented halfway through the meal, 'I can't believe how well-behaved they are.'"
Some of the parents took their children to the river after dessert and the owner approached the table, Landmann said.
"He has the menu in hand and he's showing us where it talks about the fee," Landmann said. "At first I thought he was gonna compliment us and be like, 'But you won't be charged because your kids were so well-behaved.'"
Instead, the owner told them that the diners would have to pay a $50 charge per bill, saying that the kids were being "too loud" and "running around outside," Landmann told Today.
"He got in our faces and told us that we belonged at Burger King and not at his restaurant," Landmann said. "We asked to speak to the owner and he said he was the owner."
"I looked around the restaurant and everybody was frozen watching this show he was putting on," she continued. "He was yelling."
Bryan Caracciolo, another member of the same party of diners, told Atlanta News First that the owner "basically said he has raised his children and he's not going to raise ours."
Like Landmann, Caracciolo said that the kids were well-behaved. He described the experience as a "nightmare."
"I don't suggest a family go there," he told Atlanta News First. "I have never left a review in my life for a business. When we left there, we were leaving reviews."
"If you have children, absolutely avoid this place at all costs," another diner who appeared to be part of the same group wrote in a review on Google. "Terrible business practice, we will never be back."
The owner was "disrespectful" and "made a huge scene in front of the entire restaurant," the reviewer added. The server, however, was "overly apologetic," she wrote.
Toccoa's owner told Atlanta News First that the parent surcharge had been on the menu since the pandemic, but that he'd never had to enforce it. The restaurant told the publication that they never charged Caracciolo's party the fee, but that the group must have been "really bad" for staff to mention the surcharge them.
Insider did not immediately receive a response from Toccoa to a request for comment, sent outside regular US working hours.