The photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
The photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

A restaurant owner ended up arguing with a family that had brought their own dosirak, a Korean-style packed lunch, to an all-you-can-eat restaurant to avoid paying a fee for their child. The family was later caught feeding the child food from the restaurant itself. The restaurant ultimately refunded the child's fee to end the dispute.

The story of the restaurant owner, identified only as A, who has run an all-you-can-eat restaurant with her husband in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, for three years, was recently featured on JTBC's "Sageon Banjang."

At the restaurant, customers pay a flat per-person fee for unlimited servings of vegetables for wrapping, shabu-shabu and grilling meat from a self-serve bar. Children under 4 eat free, while those between 4 and 7 are charged 7,900 won ($6).

The trouble began when a group of customers arrived — five adults, one child and one toddler. As soon as they sat down, they showed A a lunchbox bag and said, "We brought our own dosirak, so we will not pay the child's fee."

A said she did not object at the time, following her husband's advice that "it is a neighborhood business, so let us just let it go."

But while cleaning tables and restocking food around the dining area, A said she saw a male customer bring rice from the self-serve bar. She said a female customer then scooped a spoonful of that rice, topped it with seaweed taken out of the lunchbox, and fed it to the child. A also said she saw the child being fed meat provided by the restaurant.

In response, A included the child's fee when calculating the bill for fairness, and the group left without raising any objection after finishing their meal. But they returned to the restaurant shortly after, protesting, "Why did you charge us for the child's fee too?"

A's husband explained, "We saw you bring rice and eat it with meat. Other parents bring their own seaweed too, but they still pay."

The customer insisted, "The child did not eat a single bite of rice. She ate nothing at all." The rest of the group said, according to A, that they usually pack a lunchbox because the child does not eat well.

After the back-and-forth, A said she ended up refunding the child's fee to avoid further commotion.

"If they had asked for our understanding from the outset, we would not have charged them," A said. "It is not about the 7,900 won — it is just upsetting that I actually saw the child eating, yet they insisted she had not eaten anything."


choigo@heraldcorp.com