Keep that body-oddy-oddy seated, sis!
Butter pecan waffles will not come with a side of bouncing booty cheeks for diners at Dallas eatery TRUE Kitchen + Kocktails — a dogged decree mandated by owner Kevin Kelley in now-viral footage of his angry Sunday afternoon anti-twerking address. The #twerkgate clip had more than 2.3 million views as of Monday afternoon.
“All this twerking s–t, don’t bring it here because we’re a restaurant,” an apparently incensed Kelley says, scolding female patrons for standing on the furniture of his establishment and jiggling their junk-in-the-trunk to songs like Megan Thee Stallion’s “Body” and Lil Ronny MothaF’s “Circle (Throw Dat A-s In A Circle).”
Adding an extra dash of flavor to the TRUE’s lounge-like ambiance, both shake-inciting tracks, among others, were played by the venue’s in-house DJ for the customers’ entertainment. Tragically, however, Kelley was clearly not amused.
“If you wanna do it, get the f–k out my restaurant,” the restauranteur continues in his rebuke of the rump shakers, per video of the incident. “Don’t do it again. I don’t want to hear it if you don’t like it, get out because I don’t need your money.”
Assiduous in his reproach of the booty-shaking, Kelly — an African-American man — explains his upset, saying he, “…invested a lot of money into buying this building, into developing this concept so black people can have somewhere nice to go to,” and insists twerking is a distasteful representation of “the culture.”
Naturally, the all-mighty digital delegation is weighing-in with mixed opinions on the incident, with one Twitter commentator saying: “that man really jeopardized his business to scold black women for twerking all because he allowed the dj to play a-s shaking music…” and others arguing: “Y’all wouldn’t have been twerking at a white establishment.”
*story by New York Post
Since going viral, Kelley released a formal statement regarding the issue via social media, saying: “There were three tables that had been spoken to about twerking. [They] were approached very politely less than 10 minutes before [the incident]. The last young woman decided to stand in our booth seats, place her hands against the glass windows and start twerking on the glass.”
He ended, “No song played is an excuse to stand on our furniture and do what this lady did…TRUE will be for some and not all and that is ok.”
Kevin Kelley did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comments.