Maine Restaurant Owner Screams At Child, Prompting Outrage, Horrifies Patrons

A restaurant owner in Portland, Maine, is facing backlash after she yelled at a child, according to local NBC affiliate WCSH6.

Darla Neugebauer, owner of Marcy's Diner on Oak Street, told WCSH that a mother and father dined at the restaurant with their young daughter on July 18 and ordered three pancakes. When the parents didn't feed the pancakes to their daughter, she began screaming loudly. Frustrated that the parents did not take their daughter outside to calm her down, Neugebauer slammed her hands on the counter and yelled at the girl to stop.

Neugebauer said in an interview with WCSH that she gets upset sometimes, and defended her actions as just "leaning over the counter and yelling."

But the family saw it differently. Tara Carson, the child's mother, took to the restaurant's Facebook page to share her experience at Marcy's Diner, saying Neugebauer is an "absolute lunatic" and "should have spoken to me and not traumatized my child by screaming in her face." Neugebauer responded to the post with very explicit language, saying "I asked you to pack up either your rotten child or take the so important pancakes to go..." These posts have since been taken down, but can be viewed on this Twitter page.

Many people have taken to the Marcy's Diner Facebook page to criticize Neugebauer. The restaurant is now refusing to accept phone orders.

In the interview with WCSH, Neugebauer defended her actions, saying: "Life's full of choices and you've got to live with all of them. I chose to yell at the kid, it made her shut up, which made me happy, it made my staff happy, it made the other 75 people in the restaurant happy. They left, they may never come back, other people may not come in. Their loss, really."