*The owner of TRUE Kitchen and Kocktails in Dallas, Kevin Kelley, has addressed the criticism over a viral video showing him shouting at customers because a few women were twerking.
Kelley said he asked three tables of women more than once to stop twerking. At the time, a DJ was playing “Circle” by Lil Ronny. Kelley asked the DJ to stop the music and advised anyone who wanted to twerk to “get the [expletive] out of my restaurant.”
He was prompted to pop off even further when the twerking happened a third time, and a viral cell phone video shows a woman standing on furniture and twerking with her hands against a glass wall. Check out the clip below.
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“At a certain point, some of the customers started to get up and do a twerk dance. And so, we just discouraged them from doing that because we are a restaurant,” Kelley said.
Meanwhile, the low-level thinkers of society are slamming Kelly for having the audacity of having a code of conduct inside his business. Folks are lighting up his social media and going off about the “language” he used with patrons.
Filmmaker Tariq Nasheed tweeted, “Are we ready to have the conversation about people going into nice Black owned establishment and engaging in behavior they would NEVER do in white establishments?”
Some people were twerking at an upscale Black owned restaurant,True Kitchen in Dallas. The owner politely asked the group to chill. Minutes later, one of the same patrons got up and started twerking on the furniture and the glass again. So the owner voiced his frustration pic.twitter.com/DZRuJ6Kppa
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) November 30, 2020
After catching heat for the way he handled the situation, Kelley issued a lengthy statement on Instagram (see post above), and he also explained his reaction in an interview with TMZ.
“While I would like to apologize to the patrons who I offended by my poor choice of wording, I think this full story and a bit of video may help your understanding of the final straw with guests addressed and asked to leave,” he wrote on IG.
“When the first incidents occurred the guests were politely asked to stop and have respect for themselves and other customers. The guests at issue were at three (3) tables. As this video shows you will see guests spoken to politely and literally begged to stop standing on our furniture and twerking. There are other videos that show much more of the behavior in the following videos but we do not want to embarrass the guests sitting at those tables,” Kelly continued.
“Later, as another video shows, a customer stood on her seat, placed her hands against the glass windows and began to twerk. My immediate reaction was this woman could fall through this window and we could be the target of a lawsuit if she is injured. My second reaction was enough is enough. After already addressing this behavior twice, these customers no longer deserved the courtesy of kindness,” he added.
Scroll up and read his full statement via the IG post above (and SWIPE to see other camera angles from inside the eatery).
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