The owner of Dallas restaurant TRUE Kitchen + Kocktails is at the center of a firestorm after a video that was released on Sunday shows him berating patrons for twerking. 

A Twitter video shows owner Kevin Kelley loudly cursing and yelling at a table of women for twerking while Megan Thee Stallion's hit "Body" blasted through the speakers. 

"I invested a lot of money into buying this building and developing this concept so Black people can have somewhere nice to go to. Somewhere where we can feel good about ourselves as a culture," Kelley said before yelling at his DJ to cut the loud dance music and cursing at women sitting in the restaurant.

"All this twerking and s**t, take it to Prime, take it to Pink. Don't bring it here because we're a restaurant. Beyond that, 75% of our customers are ladies and I want men to show respect for how they carry themselves. How can I tell the men to respect [you] and you guys are twerking on the glass here? If you want to do it, get the f**k out of my restaurant. Don't do it again. If you don't like it, get out because I don't need your money. I need to provide something for my people," he added during the tirade.

Beyond the obvious questions of why large groups of people are packed into an indoor restaurant during a pandemic that is disproportionately killing Black people and why Kelley stood on his soapbox without a mask, debate raged online about his decision to bash his own customers and criticize their dancing as the DJ played dance music. 

Hundreds of posts bashed Kelley for disrespecting Black women and deploying the worst kind of respectability politics, others in the comments defended the restaurant owner while trying to claim that Black people would not dance at other bars or restaurants in the same way. 

Many women took issue with how Kelley spoke about Black women and about twerking, particularly at an establishment specifically playing music people would generally twerk to. 

Some who were at the restaurant said they had been waiting for the food for hours, and because of the slow service, the restaurant was giving people a lot of alcohol while they waited. A person who was sitting next to the group that got scolded said they all had been waiting for their food for nearly three hours. 

Others questioned what the restaurant thought would happen when they started playing loud dance music. 

While many spoke passionately about how Kelley's speech was rooted in misogynoir, dozens of people used the opportunities to simply clown the restaurant owner for looking ridiculous and for spending hours after the incident going after commenters online. 

Kelley and his staff made it worse by defending their actions and going after people online. Their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds are full of them retweeting, liking or sharing comments in support of Kelley or ones that criticize the women at the restaurant for dancing. 

A few people took time to defend the restaurant owner.

In a post on Monday, Kelley doubled down on his offensive comments, explaining in a post that three separate tables had been "spoken to about twerking" but that he became enraged when one woman stood on the booth seats and twerked against the glass windows. 

Kelley also defended the restaurant's decision to play dance music, saying that they play dance music that should only be enjoyed while sitting and eating. 

"As for the music, we created TRUE for it to be a place music could be enjoyed while we sit and eat. No song played is excuse to stand on our furniture and do what this lady did," Kelley wrote. "There are places for this and TRUE is not one. As for my delivery, I can assure you I was a gentlemen earlier but my nice words weren't respected. TRUE will be for some and not all and this is ok."

Despite the backlash, dozens of people defended the restaurant for berating his customers.

The outrage overshadowed the deeper point that many online made about how some aren't taking the COVID-19 pandemic seriously enough.

One in every 900 Black ppl in the US have died of COVID in less than a year and ppl still lacing up their brunch boots and risking death to eat mediocre fried chicken and drink patron slushees in a room full of strangers. https://t.co/hlBzOfDgiS

— Bath & Bella Works ???????????? (@brownandbella) November 30, 2020

According to Dallas Eater, Kelley opened the restaurant on August 21. In a statement to the news outlet, he said he was interested in creating a Black-owned restaurant in downtown Dallas built for Black people.

“It became apparent that Dallas deserves a Black-owned restaurant in the Central Business District. Not only do Black lives matter, but so do Black businesses,” he said. 

The news outlet noted that Kelley is also facing backlash because he has at times marketed the establishment as a nightclub. On the restaurant's webpage for an upcoming New Year's Eve event, they specifically call themselves a "nightclub" and are offering tickets for as much as $10,000.

Kelley is facing a lawsuit from his business partner at another restaurant in Dallas, with Taste Bar and Kitchen chef Don Bowie saying Kelley outright stole money and misused funding, according to Dallas Eater. 

dallasKevin-KelleyMisogynoirTrue-Kitchen-And-KocktailsTwerking