Aris Kopiec says she felt “belittled” after taking video of a man yelling at her while she held her sleeping baby at Toccoa Riverside Restaurant. (Credit: @ariskopes/Instagram)
A Florida mother says a man she thought was the owner of a popular riverfront restaurant in Georgia yelled at her and ordered her to leave after breastfeeding her baby.
The incident happened at Toccoa Riverside Restaurant in Blue Ridge, according to Aris Kopiec, and has since spread widely online, reigniting attention to the company’s treatment of young families.
She said she strapped her baby in, covered her immediately and made sure she was completely hidden from everyone but her own table.
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“The only people who could see me were at my table,” she said. “I immediately covered myself.”
Kopiec said she pulled her shirt back down and prepared to take her older children outside when she bumped into a chair or another guest on the crowded, enclosed porch. That, she says, was when the restaurant’s owner approached her.
“He looked at me and said, ‘You can’t do that here,’” Kopiec recalled. “I wasn’t even breastfeeding at the time. I was holding my baby in one arm and helping my kids with the other. He wouldn’t let me say any words. He kept saying, ‘I have to protect my restaurant. You have to go to a corner.'”
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Kopiec said she and her friend took the older children outside to wait while their spouses paid inside. Kopiec said staff apologized to the men in the group, but not to her.
She said when she returned to gather her belongings, the confrontation escalated. She said she calmly informed the man she claims is the owner that Georgian law explicitly protects breastfeeding in public places.
“I just told him that if he wanted to protect his restaurant, he had to follow the law,” she said. “Then he lost his mind.”
Kopiec said the man declined to give his name. After her boyfriend said he had his photo, Kopiec started recording.
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“It was so aggressive,” she said. “I knew I had to get my kids out of there.”
Kopiec left the restaurant in shock.
“Honestly, I felt like I was wrong,” she said. “My instinct was to apologize. But then I reminded myself: Women have the legal right to breastfeed. I did nothing wrong.”
Public records and local business listings confirm that 67-year-old Tim Richter is the owner of Toccoa Riverside Restaurant. In September, a Fannin County Chamber of Commerce spotlight via Facebook also identified Richter as the longtime owner and praised the restaurant’s hospitality, a characterization that many online commentators found in stark contrast to the tone in the new viral video.
Toccoa Riverside Restaurant had no further comment.
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Georgian law states that a mother may breastfeed “in any location where the mother and baby are otherwise permitted to be,” protecting breastfeeding mothers from removal or restrictions on feeding their children.
“Breastfeeding is natural and legally protected,” Cheperdak said. “Hospitality is about care, not confrontation, and raising your voice at a guest is never acceptable.”
She added that a mother is not owed an apology for feeding her child.
“A calm explanation is appropriate, but the responsibility is on the restaurant to treat her with respect,” she said. “Even if a restaurant wants a quieter atmosphere, the policy should never undermine fundamental respect for families.”
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A restaurant in Georgia has added a surcharge for “adults incapacitated” to their menu. (WAGAweb)
Local Atlanta outlets, as well as Food and Wine, reported in 2023 that Toccoa Riverside raised eyebrows for levying an “adult surcharge” for parents deemed “unable to parent,” leading to backlash from families who said they had been reprimanded for their children’s behavior.
A FOX 5 Atlanta report Regarding the fee controversy, parents said the owner had scolded their children and reportedly made a three-year-old cry.
Kopiec said she hopes the attention leads to positive change. “Every nursing mother deserves to feel safe feeding her baby,” she says. “We have a legal right to breastfeed, period.”
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As for the restaurant, she said she has chosen not to hold on to anger. “I chose to forgive,” she said. “But I would love to see them welcome breastfeeding mothers.”
The video continues to circulate widely online, where commentators debate the protection of breastfeeding and the treatment of new mothers and babies in public spaces.
