Would you bring your mother to the world’s RUDEST restaurant?
Karen’s Diner has arrived in Ireland with its despicable language, dreadful service, cutting insults and very embarrassing forfeits. Oh, and the food is not even good. So...
I’M not generally a nervous person, but there have been momentous occasions when I’ve been almost dizzy with apprehension. Singing solo in a school play, going for my driving test, taking that first step down the aisle on my wedding day.
This week I found my palms sweating and heart racing prior to yet another of life’s milestones. I was taking my mother Monica — who is quite a formidable lady — to Karen’s Diner, which prides itself on being the most despicable restaurant in town.
Newly opened in O’Connell Street, the Dublin branch is one of several of the world’s rudest restaurants, originating in Australia, before making its way to the US, Britain and finally Ireland.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, let me try to politely explain. It’s a themed restaurant with purposely offensive staff born from the meme sensation that is ‘a Karen’, ie, someone — usually a white, middle-aged woman, with a blonde asymmetric bob — who is entitled and demanding.
Now, my own mother is no shrinking violet. In fact, she’s been known to wither entire species with a
‘What the f *** are you looking at?’ the waitress roars
look. Plus, as she has gotten older — no details here, as I like being alive — she increasingly dislikes eating out. When quizzed on this, she’ll explain that the hospitality industry as a whole just seems to be incompetent of doing the most basic things, like, for example, making a hot cup of tea. The amount of tea that has been sent back to where it came from, with my mother’s insistent tone following: ‘100 degrees centigrade! Water that’s been on a rolling boil!’
All the while I’m thinking no wonder it’s gone cold, she’d looked at the pot.
Karen’s only does fast food — and, as we were to discover, bad fast food at that. So after an hour of bad traffic and an ear bashing on how she ‘only eats salmon and vegetables’, you can see why I was already regretting my decision to tow along this most unwilling guest. We weren’t even inside and I wanted to run away.
‘What time is your booking,’ a bespectacled terrier snarls at us from behind the door. ‘Five fifteen,’ I say, to rolled eyes. ‘It’s five twenty, so yis can f*** off.’ Door shuts.
I sigh in relief. Door opens again. Damn, so close.
I have already decided I don’t like this place. The music is too loud — yes, on purpose — it’s cheap and nasty and I make the rookie mistake of being slightly deaf in one ear and mishearing what Terrier had grunted at me.
‘Sorry?’ I ask, trying to lip read over the din. ‘You said something about being lonely?’
He looks at me like I’ve just told him I killed his dog. ‘ONLY!’ he roars in my face. ‘Card payments ONLY! Blonde and f***ing thick!’ he concludes, throwing the menus on the floor before jabbing his finger randomly in the air, presumably to indicate a table.
Picking them up, I quickly learn the house rules — don’t draw attention to yourself, or make eye contact with staff and sit the hell down as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, my mother wasn’t up to speed with the above, and whipped her coat off, revealing her very red, very sparkly top, while also daring to ask a waitress where our table was.
‘What the f*** are you wearing, nanny?’ a hard-faced hostess spits at my equally disgusted mother. ‘The state of ye! Go home and get your pension book!’
Public shaming by mocking appearance is a recurring theme. Monica laughs — she’s been well prepped — but her smile doesn’t meet her eyes, which then turn on me.
‘Thanks!’ she hisses. ‘You could have told me not to wear anything dressy!’
How I’m to blame for my mother’s ignominy is beyond me, but I let this one go. The complexities of mother/daughter relations are the least of our worries in this hellhole, which seems to be getting more offensive by the second, even without the help of its surly staff. A distinct whiff of cigarette smoke from god knows where hits me as our drinks are plonked on the table.
‘Drop the tray up when you’re done,’ orders Wasp, before roaring at a delighted child — of which there were many — to ‘get out of the f***ing way’. The place was full of kids, some as young as six, not only being privy to the almost constant cursing and general nastiness, but encouraged to be actively involved in it.
I’ve seen many shocking scenes in my time but the sight of an entire restaurant singing ‘Happy birthday, p*** off’ to a girl who couldn’t have been more than eight is something that will haunt me for all eternity. ‘Now you’ve had your 90 seconds of fame, you’re officially irrelevant,’ booms a particularly terrifying waitress to her young, willing victim.
‘What the f*** are you looking at?!’ she roars at a woman who happened to glance up from her burger at the wrong time.
My two young daughters freak when an ‘E-rated’ song comes on their Spotify list, so their delicate ears would bleed in an environment like this. This child?
Beaming! Absolutely f***ing delighted with herself — forgive my language, but well, when in Karen’s...
More puzzlingly, her parents are also thrilled, which is more than I can say for my own mother, whose food has essentially been drop-kicked in front of her.
She ordered the Bingo Wings, and I can confirm they indeed look like they were smothered in fake tan and are suitably flabby. Meanwhile, my equally unappetising sounding Karen’s Hot and Bothered chicken burger is edible, but that doesn’t mean it’s nice. Of course, there are no cutlery or sauces, so I go and get some, head down to avoid a heckle, sitting back down just in time for the ‘games’ part of the evening. Shudder.
‘Get up here and spin the wheel Rude gesture: Terrier insisted on flipping the bird of fortune!’ sneers Angry, her beady eyes scanning the room. ‘Oi, you!’ she booms. ‘Nanny!’ Oh no. ‘Come on Nanny...’ She’s beside my mother now, who has stopped laughing long ago.
‘I’m eating my food,’ Monica says quietly, solemnly, in a tone that makes my blood run cold. This is the five-second warning, the bell before the unleashing of the OG Irish Mammy.
‘I said, get the f*** up Nanny,’ Angry wheedles.
Monica swivels in her chair and looks her straight in the piercings. There’s that cigarette stench again, and although I haven’t smoked for years, I now want a cigarette for my nerves.
‘And I said, I’m eating my food. So leave me ALONE!’ Monica’s tone has a ferocity only reserved for the gravest of wrongdoings — for instance, if you enter her hall without wiping your feet — and there’s something about it that makes me want to cry a little. For a beat it’s like the wretched place has finally gone quiet, while my mother continues to stare her down, wielding a Bingo Wing as a weapon. Then Angry smirks, shouts ‘Muppet’ and locates two more casualties. A well-groomed man who may have dabbled in cosmetic dentistry is introduced to the baying crowd as ‘Turkey Teeth’ while a woman in her 20s is nicknamed ‘Shein’ — after the cut-price clothing supplier — for the sake of audience participation time. Yes, as if diners don’t have enough to contend with, games are unfortunately part of the Karen experience. These centre around a dubious wheel of fortune which customers spin and perform fun-filled activities such as ‘Karen-Oake’ or ‘Karen’s Fashion parade’. Now I’ll admit, I do have a giggle as Turkey Teeth sashays around to Britney Spears’s Work Bitch, but I am starting to get indigestion from all the crass indulgence. ‘You just lost against a f***ing child, you’re weak as s**t,’ observes Angry, following an arm wrestle between a man and a tiny girl, whose ears I very dearly wish to cover. There is a lot of gags that just fall flat — in particular, the insult hats, which definitely need more work. ‘Tik Tok twat’ was written on one child’s head, while a sparkly-faced teen wore ‘I thought I was at Longitude’ on hers.
Unfortunately, despite my best Kegel exercises, I have to use the bathroom — and am greeted by another diner coming out.
‘There’s no toilet paper, and there’s no way I’m asking for any,’ she smiles apologetically.
I grab a load of napkins — for me, and the rest of my peers — in an effort to make at least one part of this horrifying spectacle a bit easier.
At this point, my mother is demanding we leave. For once, I’m in complete agreement.
‘Do yis want any desserts?’ queries Wasp, to which my mother replies: ‘I don’t eat sweet things.’ Now if that’s not asking for it. ‘Jaysis, you’re one boring bitch.’
I ask for the bill, and Wasp says she’ll think about it. At this point, I somehow catch the eye of another Karen, who looks softer and kinder. I ask her for a picture, thinking it would be good for the purposes of the article — although I don’t voice this.
Her lip curls menacingly. ‘For your Instagram is it? No thanks, I don’t associate with narcissists,’ she utters contemptuously, in a surprising clipped accent (let’s call her Posh Spice).
Oooh, that dig was low, this one was good, and I almost want to explain that I’m not an influencer, and have a meagre social media following, but I figure this would make things worse.
Our bill flutters down from a height, courtesy of Terrier, who asks if we are giving a cash tip. As 10 per cent is already added to the total, and there’s a €20 minimum spend per person, plus a €10 online booking fee for both of us, that is a definitive no.
‘You’re one tight bitch,’ he barks, and I smile and nod in agreement, just relieved to be finally getting out of there. I spy colouring pages and ask Posh can I take some home for my children.
‘I can’t take them here, the language is too bad,’ I say by way of small talk, as she rolls her eyes and fishes some out of a press.
‘Sorry, do you think I care? I’m glad you didn’t bring your little narcissist children. Do I look like a f***ing babysitter?’ she retorts, flinging the pages in my face.
Going out the door, I can’t resist getting a selfie against the neon middle finger on the wall, and manage to drag Monica — who I’ve rarely seen so quiet in my life — in too.
Terrier is in like a light, bang in the middle, demanding we follow his lead in flipping the bird.
‘Stick your middle finger up!’ he roars at my mother, who acquiesces by doing so right in his face. ‘Jaysis, get that away from me, I don’t know where that’s been...’
We push ourselves out the door, at last, leaving the noise and horror and Karens in our wake, vowing never to return.
‘What time is it? I want to be home for my dinner,’ orders my mother as we walk to the car.
‘I’m having salmon and vegetables tonight.’
‘You’re officially irrelevant,’ she booms at a young victim