Marcy's Diner is a

diner A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a com ...

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

. It made international headlines in 2015 after a spat between then-cook-owner Darla Neugebauer and a patron over the latter's screaming child. Located in the

Everett Chambers The Everett Chambers or Hotel Everett is a historic mixed-use commercial and residential building at 47-55 Oak Street in Downtown Portland, Maine. Built in 1902 to a design by local architect Frederick Tompson, it is an important surviving example ...

building, it is open five days a week: Wednesday to Sunday, 7.00am to 1.00pm.

History

Known in its early days as Your Host Café, then in the 1960s as Lou’s, and later as Mike’s, it became Marcy's Diner in 1989."Marcy's Diner has a new owner"
- ''

Portland Press Herald The ''Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram'' is a morning daily newspaper with a website that serves southern Maine and is focused on the greater metropolitan area around Portland, Maine, in the United States. Founded in 1862, its roots e ...

'', March 7, 2019 Marcy Litman, now resident in

St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the ...

, ran the business for ten years, selling it in 1999 to Kevin and Heather Smith. It was sold again two years later, to Murray and Joely Sparks. After getting to know Murray's mother, Lois, while working at the now-defunct Paul's Food Center, Darla Neugebauer — then working at Portland's Holiday Inn by the Bay — learned that the Sparkses were looking to sell the diner because the recent birth of their child meant they could no longer afford the time it needed. Lois Sparks was killed in an automobile accident in 2012, a year after the Neugebauers purchased the diner."POST-PANCAKEGATE: MARCY’S DINER OWNER REFLECTS ON DINER LIFE IN THE WAKE OF OUSTED-CHILD CONTROVERSY"
- ''

Portland Phoenix Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

'', August 12, 2015 Co-owner Doug Neugebauer died on March 10, 2018. In January 2019, Mandy Lacourse took the business over from Neugebauer. Lacourse was a server at the diner between 1997 and mid-2018. The diner celebrated its thirtieth anniversary under Marcy's name on March 8, 2019.

Babygate

The diner made international news in 2015 after then-owner Darla Neugebauer's confrontation with Tara Carson, the mother of a 21-month-old child who was screaming "for forty minutes""What the Toddler-Hating Diner Owner Teaches Us About Parenting"
- ''

TIME Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', July 22, 2015 after her pancakes were kept out of her reach by her parents during their July 18 visit. Neugebauer yelled "That needs to stop!" and pointed at the child."Rebuke for Crying Child in a Diner Starts a Parenting Debate"
- ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', July 21, 2015 "I think what everyone is forgetting, it’s my iner my rules,” Neugebauer's said shortly after the incident. This was one of the phrases that made it onto a T-shirt now sold in the diner. “If you don’t want to play by the rules, I’ll happily call Portland PD to escort your (expletive) out. If it seems like I’m getting a little pissed off, it’s because I am.""Marcy’s Diner owner, parent of fussy child continue online feud"
- ''

'', July 22, 2015 “I chose to yell at the kid. It made her shut up, which made me happy, made my staff happy, made the other 75 people in the restaurant happy,” said Neugebauer, a native of

Madison, Maine Madison (formerly Norridgewock) is a town in Somerset County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,726 at the 2020 census. History The area was once territory of the Norridgewock Indians, a band of the Abenaki nation. Early visitors d ...

. “I may have used poor judgement, but I wouldn’t say I was sorry, because it stopped.”"A kid cries in a restaurant. The owner yells at her. Now what?"
- ''Washington Post'', July 21, 2015 Carson's side of the story was posted on the website of the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''."I’m the mom whose encounter with an angry Maine diner owner went viral. Here’s what happened"
- ''Washington Post'', July 22, 2015 Since the controversy, business at the diner has increased exponentially, despite the average rating of reviews being lowered by people who side with Carson. “We’ve gone from three cases of bacon a week to eight,” said Neugebauer a month after the incident. A year later, their egg usage had increased from three cases a week to "three cases on a Sunday." Neugebauer added: "Babygate was very good for Marcy's. I have a new grill with four working handles. The old one only had one!""Darla Neugebauer is a neighborhood favorite at Marcy's Diner"
- WCSH6, March 13, 2016 “I’ve been here two and half years,” said Gillian Sinnott, one of the waitstaff at the time. “It feels likes it’s doubled since I’ve been here. I used to work two shifts on my own, and I can’t serve by myself any day of the week now.” They also employed a dedicated host for lunchtimes, which is something they had never previously needed. There was a two-hour wait on Saturday and Sunday mornings for a long period thereafter.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Marcy's Diner's Facebook page''The Washington Posts story on the Neugebauer-Carson incident

''TIMEs story

CBS News story

''USA Today'' story
Restaurants in Portland, Maine Restaurants established in 1941 Diners in Maine 1941 establishments in Maine Lunch counters