Meghan Zahari is co-owner of the Bronuts donut and coffee shop in Winnipeg, and part of her job involves responding to online reviews. She recently discovered a customer had posted a complaint about her breastfeeding in the shop.
"Oh, and the baby being breast-fed behind the counter and the dude using his finger to level off my coffee before it was perked were nice touches, too," wrote "Lord Igor." The review was posted on Zomato months ago and set off a series of replies.
As the Zomato thread grew, many commenters stepped in to defended breastfeeding in public. This man said breastfeeding is "totally natural and the opposite of disgusting."
"Her baby was hungry, should she pack up and go home with a crying baby who just wants to be fed?" wrote one woman. "Go outside and sit in the street? Feed the baby in the bathroom? I don't know about you but I don't eat in the bathroom."
"Lord Igor" also came back to defend his original comment. He said that being "behind the counter at an eating establishment breast feeding a child, without a privacy cover, is not only unprofessional, it is non hygienic."
Zahari posted a reply on her personal Instagram. "I hope those people are, at the very least, grateful for their own mothers' efforts and I hope that next time someone leaves a negative review about me as a business owner, it's actually about my work."
"I think that breastfeeding is a natural and positive thing and unfortunately, mostly in North America, we haven't quite got to the point where everyone views it as a normal thing," Zahari told BuzzFeed Canada.
