A New Jersey restaurant put a Proud Boys burger on its menu, sparking massive backlash online and prompting the owner to apologize for appearing to glorify the far-right group.
Aqua Blue Kitchen & Cocktails' “Proud Boys Burger” contained ingredients listed on the menu as “White American Cheese,” “Layer of Truth,” “Cancel Culture Coleslaw,” and “Liberty Sauce.” .
Owner Kathy Barriere sought to distance herself from her restaurant's greasy menu after a customer uploaded a photo of the menu, sparking a storm of outrage online.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I didn’t know what a Proud Boy was,” she says. told NJ Advance Mediaexplained that the idea for the burger came from one of her chefs.
“I thought he was a proud boy.”
Barriare noted that his eatery had previously offered both Sleepy Joe and Trump burgers, and in a now-deleted Facebook post he said the special menu was “about boldness and freedom. She said her phone and inbox were flooded with messages after it was advertised as “overlapping.”
She immediately asked the chef if the burger represented anything disrespectful before deleting the post and reprinting the menu. But her efforts didn't stop the bad publicity, which she said was a “nightmare,” the paper reported.
“Now that I know what it is, I completely understand,” said the emotional person.
“But how do I fix it? I don't know how to fix it.”
Bariare said her restaurant has been offering themed burgers every Thursday for the past eight years, and that night featured a special burger with a bad name among four burgers.
This week, she asked her staff to make two burgers named after her family. The request disputed her claims that her staff and their families had ties to the Proud Boys organization.
“It was a bad decision,” Bariare said.
“It was stupid. It was ignorant. But we don't support hatred or Nazism or anything like that.”
She said some angry callers have threatened to protest outside the restaurant or refused to come back.
Barriare opened the popular restaurant 13 years ago. Aqua Blu shared a lengthy apology on Facebook. On Friday morning, she explained that the burger was a mistake and that her bistro stands united against hate.
“While we understand how it was interpreted, that was never our intention or what we stand for. As we reflect on this experience and learn from it, Please take this into consideration,” the post, which closed the comments section, said.
“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of you who have supported us over the years. Please know that we will never do anything that would jeopardize your trust and respect for Aqua Blu. I hope you understand and accept this as an apology.”
The Anti-Defamation League considers the Proud Boys to be a right-wing extremist hate group that is misogynistic, Islamophobic, and anti-immigrant.
The ADL says it has several hundred members and also supports white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies.
The self-proclaimed “Western chauvinist” group has been active since at least 2016, and its leaders encourage members and followers to commit acts of violence against rivals who do not subscribe to their extreme ideology.
The group famously participated in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where one woman was mowed down to death by Nazi sympathizers.
The burger special was announced days after President Trump pardoned nearly 1,500 people, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Ta.
He is serving 16 months of a 22-year prison sentence, one of the longest sentences handed down by a judge in the Jan. 6 incident, for his role in orchestrating the Proud Boys' role in that day's events. He was released.
