I wanted my heavily meat eating family to try a vegan meal to help educate them on why I am a vegan.

As I had a plane to catch back to London from Austin, I used the Happy Cow app to find Counter Culture.

We drove two hours from San Antonio and arrived at the restaurant at 3:30pm and found it was closed. We saw a people inside, so my mum went in to check. A female staff member told my mum they re-opened at 4pm but it was ok to wait inside while they cleaned up.

So my 69-year-old mum, my 2 & 4-year-old nephews and I went in. Then a male member of staff walked to us and told us to leave because they were closed. I told him that his colleague had told my mum it was ok to wait inside, but he told us we had to leave and we could wait outside the restaurant on a bench by the street. I told him that wouldn't be great with the two toddlers. I suggested we wait in the covered outside dining area of the restaurant but he said no, we'd have to leave the restaurant premises and wait outside.

He walked off and as we prepared to leave, a female member of staff who didn't seem to have heard the conversation that just occurred asked us if we wanted to look at the menu while we waited. I told her that her male colleague said we had to wait outside. She said yes they were closed, but it was fine for my family to sit and wait inside until the opened.

So we sat in a corner of the restaurant and a few moments later, the male member of staff approached us with a broom and asked us to move because he wanted to sweep that corner. I asked where would be a good place to sit so we were not in the way, and he said we shouldn't even be there. This guy clearly did not want us in the restaurant. I decided I was not going to wait outside with my family to support an establishment that has some staff who do not have the common human decency of kindness, but rather expected an elderly woman and two toddlers to stand outside. Especially as the only reason we had entered the restaurant was because the original female staff member told my mother it would be ok to wait inside until they opened.

My brother who had been parking the car was a bit perplexed as he arrived to find me ushering the family out. The kids were hungry so he ended up taking them to the Sonics a few blocks away and bought them hot dogs.

I'm genuinely sad that what should have been a great teachable moment for my family on being vegan, ended up being a teachable moment on rudeness and lack of compassion.