Teens who urinated in hotpot ordered to pay $300,000 to catering companies

A Shanghai court has ordered two teenagers to pay over $300,000 in damages after they urinated into the broth at a Haidilao hotpot restaurant, one of China’s largest chains.

Haidilao started as a small restaurant in Sichuan, China, and has become a popular international chain with over 1,000 locations. They’re famous for going above and beyond for customers, offering fun extras like manicures and cotton candy to make the wait for a table more enjoyable.

After a video of their reckless behavior went viral in February, the two 17-year-olds faced public backlash. While no one actually drank the spoiled soup, the incident caused significant criticism and led Haidilao to offer refunds to thousands of customers and update the restaurant’s equipment.

Teens forced to pay $300,000 in damages

On September 12th, a Shanghai court decided that the teenagers had violated Haidilao and a related catering company’s rights by damaging their reputation. The court stated the teens’ actions were offensive and upset many people. Additionally, the court held the parents responsible for not properly supervising their children and ordered them to pay the fines.

I was shocked to hear about the whole Haidilao incident and the costs involved! Apparently, the total came to around 2.2 million yuan – that’s about $309,000. A big chunk of that, 2 million yuan, was to cover the damage to their reputation and the costs of keeping things running smoothly. They also had about 130,000 yuan in losses from broken dishes and cleaning, plus another 70,000 yuan in legal fees. But here’s the thing – the court decided that the extra stuff Haidilao did, like giving full refunds and paying customers ten times their bill amount, was just a good business move on their part, and the teenagers involved weren’t responsible for those costs. It’s good to see they weren’t held accountable for the voluntary extras!

Okay, so after that whole thing at the Shanghai Haidilao, they really tried to make it right. They gave refunds to over 4,000 people who ate there in the two weeks after, and they didn’t just stop there – they did a massive deep clean of the whole place and swapped out *all* the hotpot equipment. It sounds like they wanted to be super careful and get everyone back on board.

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2025-09-16 22:48