Farewell to Karen's Diner, the weirdest restaurant chain Australia has ever seen.

A waitress, dressed in a retro pink uniform, grabs a megaphone and approaches a table, singling out one woman while announcing through the microphone, "She did get a free shot but she is still complaining about our food! Even though she got a Basic Karen with nothing on it." 

The waitress then leads the restaurant in a call to shame the woman, shouting at her through the megaphone: "Booooooo!" 

This was the essence of Australia's weirdest restaurant chain, broadcast last year on A Current Affair. It was an interactive dining experience where waiters would belittle and swear at customers, fling down food with spite, and force customers to engage in humiliating routines. But this week, the chain has come to a very sudden and unceremonious end. 

It was announced on Monday this week that Viral Ventures Pty Ltd, which owned restaurants including the Karen's Diner and Broadway Diner chain, had gone into voluntary liquidation. 

The end of Viral Ventures has seen the closure of Karen's Diner restaurants in Melbourne, Perth and the Gold Coast so far. 

With the demise of Karen's Diner, we felt like the time was right to take a look back at its legacy, all of its controversies, and unpack why something like this ever got popular... 

Ok wait, what the hell is Karen's Diner? 

It was a chain of restaurants, decorated in a retro 50s style, that operated with the gimmick of waiters who were allowed to be rude to customers – and we mean, like, really rude. 

Listen to Mamamia Out Loud discuss Christmas lunch below. Article continues after podcast. 

Waiters were allowed to swear, tell people to f**k off, flip their middle fingers, walk away, shout, film people, and toss food. The only kinds of offence that were explicitly off-limits were jokes based on a person's body, ethnicity, or sexuality. 

Karen's Diner first launched in October, 2021, off the back of viral 'Karen' memes. 'Karen' being a shorthand for a type of extremely entitled, middle-aged woman who kept cropping up in viral videos, acting aggressively (generally towards customer service people), and 'asking to speak to the manager'. 

The idea became wildly popular very quickly, with restaurants booking up and the chain expanding from Sydney to Melbourne, Perth, the Gold Coast, and Adelaide. 

This gimmick seems... risky.

You bet it was. 

Watch: 10 Things Elegant Ladies Never Do At A Restaurant Below. Article continues after video. 

Even though waiters were instructed to stick within a certain set of boundaries when they were offending customers, they didn't always stick to the rules. 

Late last year, the Brisbane restaurant came under fire when one of the waitstaff was caught on camera taking the act a little too far. A male waiter accused a father of being a "paedophile" and his daughter of having an OnlyFans account. The waiter also allegedly called the girl a "tart" and mimed ejaculating onto their table. 

Karen's Diner were forced to apologise for behaviour that the father described as "vulgar" and said they were implementing more protocols so that an incident like that never happened again. 

Except that it kind of did again one month later when a woman claimed that the same Brisbane restaurant targeted that the waitstaff targeted her and her friends about their appearances. An altercation occurred the same night when a waiter made fun of a man for his receding hairline and the man responded by shouting that they were not permitted to 'body shame'. 

But it wasn't just customers who criticised the environment. 

@karensdinerofficial @eddiehallwsm came & visited one of our diners & all we can say is, don't come back prick 🙄🖕#karensdiner#karensoftiktok#eddiehall#strongestman#fyp ♬ original sound - Karen's Diner

Employees of Karens Diner claimed in November last year that the restaurant was an unsafe work environment and alleged that they had experienced sexual and physical harassment by customers. 

Former waiter, Kaliya Arumugam told the ABC that she had worked at Karen's Diner for six months and had experienced multiple incidents of harassment that were not taken seriously by the chain. 

"I had a group of young men physically threaten me, and once they left, they waited outside the front of the venue for me for about an hour or so," she said. 

@karensdinerofficial at this point we’re absolutely sick of your sh*t, especially the disgusting vegans 🙄🖕🏻 #karensdiner #karensdinerau #karensoftiktok #fyp #karensdinerbrisbane ♬ original sound - Kyle & Jackie O

Karen's Diner allegedly tried to implement rules systems, where customers would be asked to leave after breaking the restaurant's 'house rules' but the system was quickly pulled. Another former staff member said that the 'red card' system for customers was stopped because "they very quickly realised they were losing a lot of revenue because a lot of the customers were not following the house rules". 

While Australia's brief and bizarre affair with Karen's Diner may be over, it seems to remain a successful franchise overseas and the end of Viral Ventures will not lead to the closure of international restaurants in Indonesia, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

Images: @karensdinerofficial on TikTok.