What could have been a social media disaster has turned into unintended success for local eatery Tribe Road Kitchen.

After a mixture of outrage and support directed at Tribe Road Kitchen, following a Facebook post requesting parents keep their children seated when dining in the outdoor garden, owners Karsten Krivenko and Russell Petty said “far more” people are coming into the restaurant now, knowing they won’t be bothered by unruly children.

The Saturday following the viral Facebook post, Mr Petty said business was “comparable, if not better.”

“It was a different crowd (over the weekend). Different people came out who said they wouldn’t have come otherwise.

“That’s the bottom line. Nobody wants to be somewhere where there’s children climbing everywhere.

“And a lot of families came too, and their children were wonderful little citizens. They sat, and when they didn’t sit, we didn’t make them sit in their chair.”

“It was the way a proper establishment should be run,” said Mrs Krivenko. “Our service was more efficient. We’re global citizens and we all have to work together and respect everyone.”

The backlash to the original Facebook post was eye-opening, said Mrs Krivenko, and showed just how quickly people are willing to post their opinions without the relevant information.

“I didn’t actually realise how many opinions everyone has.

“The sad thing is people are more likely to post whatever they want, say whatever they want, but they’ll never say it to your face.

“And I think that’s the one thing with social media that’s changed things.

“People can’t communicate face-to-face. It’s, ‘Oh, I can just send a text’, or get on Facebook and bash somebody’.

“We got some very bad PR from [Bermemes founder] Déjon Simons, who took a screenshot of the post and posted it on his page.”

The result of the social media furore has surprisingly ended up in Tribe Road Kitchen’s favour, said Mrs Krivenko, by attracting the type of clientele they were already hoping to attract.

“We’re going to be doing dinner. In the next month we should be up and running, hopefully doing dinner Wednesday through to Saturdays and Sunday for breakfast.

“We’re looking into maybe closing in on Mondays as well. We’ve got to change our whole focus. We originally opened up to be a bakery, that was our main intention, but everyone in the neighbourhood wanted lunch.

“We started catering to the lunch people and we ended up going into lunch rather than baking, so our business model’s completely different from where we started. So we’re just trying to find our way, keep evolving.”

Mr Petty added that they have had no problem with families coming for breakfast whose children know how to behave.

“People have been bringing their families and we don’t have to explain why they can’t run wild like the other children.

“This is a garden that should reflect peace and tranquility within the city, somewhere you can go and relax.

“It’s not a playground where mothers can come and let their children run wild, which is what they thought it was, and that’s the only reason they came here.”