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Why cafes reject birthday requests? Owner apologizes to Rocket Punch and Ateez fans

Fans are indignant as the cafe owner rejects birthday event requests citing Rocket Punch and Ateez as unpopular

It is quite common in K-pop fandoms to hold birthday events at cafes in South Korea to celebrate an idol’s birthday. We also sometimes have idols going to these cafe birthday events to surprise fans. However, with more and more idols debuting, birthdays are bound to clash and cafes have to pick between the more popular idol and a larger fandom who can get them business. But that wasn't even one cafe owner's case as they rejected two birthday events.

On March 14, a Rocket Punch fan disappointedly shared that Cafe Yellow Birthday had rejected their birthday request for Suyun. The fan's post first went viral as it was captioned as the disadvantage of being a fan of a nugu (not popular) group. But after Knetizens read the conversation between the fan and the cafe owner they were indignant since it seems the owner had been cheeky. Fans went to the thread that prompted the Rocket Punch fan’s post and realized that the same incident had occurred with an Ateez fan where the owner had allegedly lied.

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An Ateez fan is rejected

An alleged Ateez fan had asked the owner if they could book the cafe for a birthday event for three dates in November. The owner asked about the artist and after the fan mentioned it the owner shared that they did not have any booking yet on that date but were planning to make a reservation for someone else. However, the fan later saw on the cafe’s Twitter that the dates were unbooked. Many think that this incident was for Ateez's Wooyoung after seeing the birthday dates.

The cafe’s strict rules

Another user pointed out that Cafe Yellow Birthday was pretty rigid as they shared, “You have to put in a downpayment of 100k Won (~$80) and if less than 20 people come…the downpayment is taken as rental…If there are cakes left in stock, I have to buy it all. If you don’t have more than 50 people expected, they don’t sell bottled drinks.”

Turns out that this had prompted the Rocket Punch fan's post which went viral. The owner shared that the cafe was possible for renting on the dates the fan had asked for but after hearing that it was for Suyun, they replied 10 minutes later, “Oh sorry I’m planning to accept reservations for another artist on those days.” The cafe owner then tweeted that they were looking to host birthday cafe events for only certain artists.

Owner apologizes

After international Ateez fans found the thread, they trended it on Twitter till the cafe owner apologized on March 15. They stated, “We are very sorry for having hurt your feelings by picking…the reservations we accept. We were in the midst of creating a set of rules…through a few events that we had experienced, seeing as we only recently opened…As we are also a business operating for profit, we of course set the standards by profit and we caused hurt to the fans this way. We were inconsiderate due to my greed. I’m sorry.”

'You're not the only cafe in Korea'

Ateez fans were indignant that the owner was explaining their decision rather than simply apologizing and tweeted, “When the cafe manager sees Ateez on Vogue the next day.” Another Atiny posted, “Dont disrespect ATEEZ and ATINYs sis😭 youre not the only cafe in Korea. This is upsetting.” One fan explained why there was such an uproar, “I understand that you did it for money but you or your staff could have done it in a professional or better way to not offend the fans.”

Similarly, Rocket Punch fans made tweets like, “Suyun & Rocket Punch will always be famous. Wait for Ropunkarma.” Another fan shared, “Rocket punch deserve SO MUCH BETTER.”  One angry fan added, “Don't like to wish evil on ppl but hope they go bankrupt!”

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