Family banned from conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Korea after mass ordering salmon and flounder dishes

A family of four were asked not to return to a sushi joint in Seoul after ordering 30 plates of just two types of fish — salmon and flounder.

The incident was first reported on Tuesday (Feb 3) through Scandal Supervisor, a Korean current affairs programme, after one of the affected family members submitted a personal account.

The woman, who wanted to be known as A, is a housewife in her fifties and visited the conveyor belt sushi restaurant last weekend with her mother, husband, and younger brother.

A said that she would often visit the restaurant with her mother, who only eats flounder sushi.

She added that their family had arrived at the restaurant for an early lunch and were the first customers of the day.

Her younger brother ordered 20 plates of salmon sushi and 10 plates of flounder sushi, while she and her husband ate other dishes such as eel and tuna sushi.

Throughout the meal, her family was neither asked to order different dishes, nor did the owner complain, said A. 

The owner's anger and resentment towards A's family was only made known when they went to pay for their meal.

After totalling the final cost of the meal, the owner said: "Please do not visit our restaurant again in the future."

The owner argued that it was unfair of the family to order 20 plates of the same dish since they were the first customers, adding that there would not be any left over for other customers dining on the same day.

A responded in protest, stating that the owner should have asked her family to order different dishes, rather than take the extreme measure of banning them from the restaurant.

Panellists and netizens divided

The panellists on Scandal Supervisor appeared to be just as bewildered by the incident, with the majority coming to A's defence.

One of the panellists, Yang Ji-yeol, guessed that the owner acted that way due to A's seemingly excessive orders of flounder sushi, said to be the most popular type of fish at sushi restaurants.

"It's hard to believe that there's any other reason [for banning customers]," he said.

Another panellist, lawyer Park Ji-hoon, said that the draw of dining at conveyor belt restaurants is the ability to pick whatever dish you want from the belt.

He added that if the owner was worried that there would be no flounder sushi left on the belt, he should have taken a different approach put up a notice informing customers not to order flounder in excess.

Netizens also joined in on the debate, with many saying that the owner's actions were unnecessarily harsh.

At the same time, others said that A's family should have gone to a regular sushi restaurant if they knew that they would be ordering the same dishes.

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dana.leong@asiaone.com