Durham ice cream shop manager tells breastfeeding mom to cover up. Owner apologizes
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- A customer said a manager told her to cover up while breastfeeding at an ice cream shop.
- Co-owner Audrey Simons apologized and said breastfeeding is welcome at the shop.
- North Carolina law allows women to breastfeed in public with or without a covering.
After being told she could not breastfeed without a covering, a customer said she left Simons Says Dip This ice cream shop in shock. Nursing was the only thing that would quiet her 6-week-old baby, she said.
An anonymous user took to Reddit on Thursday to explain her interaction at the store’s Durham location with the shop’s manager, who told her she needed to cover herself while breastfeeding. The post received more than 300 comments in just 24 hours.
“I was so shocked that I got up with my family and left. While gathering our thoughts on the bench outside, my husband decided to go back in and let them know that it’s illegal to ask someone to cover up/stop breastfeeding,” the Reddit post said. “The person responded that they were the manager and then her coworker chimed in ‘I don’t want to see that.’”
One of the shop’s owners, Audrey Simons, told The News & Observer that if she had been in the shop Thursday evening, the incident would not have happened.
“I have absolutely no problem with public nursing,” Simons said. “If the baby’s hungry, feed the baby. I don’t care where you are.”
The News & Observer reached out to the Reddit poster but did not receive a response.
What NC law says about breastfeeding in public
North Carolina law permits women to breastfeed their babies in public with or without a covering.
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a woman may breast feed in any public or private location where she is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether the nipple of the mother’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breast feeding,” the law states.
Store owner apologizes
Simons said that she received an email from the customer explaining the incident. She said she replied with an apology and posted a public apology in the comments of the woman’s Reddit post, though it was taken down because of the forum’s rules about users posting from accounts less than a day old.
“I’m sorry that that happened ... I would never want something like that to happen here,” Simons said. “And I told the mother that she’s obviously welcomed here without interruption. If she wants to nurse her child here, I have no problem with that whatsoever.”
Simons said the manager who talked to the breastfeeding mother is young and didn’t know how to handle the situation. The manager reached out to Simons following the interaction to ask if she had handled the situation properly. Simons explained that she did not and the manager apologized, she said.
This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 2:26 PM.
