Red Hen restaurants feel the heat after Sarah Sanders started from Virginia restaurant with the same name

Michael Friedman never imagined that naming his restaurant The Red Hen would be so controversial.

But when the co-owner of another restaurant named The Red Hen – this one nearly 200 miles away in Lexington, Virginia – refused to serve Sarah Sanders, press secretary of the White House, on Friday night he was open all the season. first name.

"It was an interesting day yesterday," Friedman told Fox News. "There were so many negative comments floating on social media and people calling my restaurants to threaten us."

The foul play began when Sanders tweeted that the owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, had told her that she had to "leave because I was working for @POTUS and I left politely". She said the Friday night episode said a lot more about the restaurant owner than about her.

"I always do my best to treat people, including those with whom I do not agree, and I will continue to do so," Sanders said in the tweet of his official account, which generated 22 000 answers in one hour.

While Friedman was trying to quickly quell any violent reaction to his Italian-influenced restaurant by posting on his social networks that his restaurant had no affiliation with that of Lexington, he did little to stop the flood of comments and angry calls. . One person called one of Friedman's other restaurants and threatened to blow it up, while another simply repeated the word "shame" again and again.

"It's a huge misconception," Friedman said. "We are not affiliated with Lexington's restaurant, it's not a franchise, we serve anyone who walks through the door, regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, political party or other."

Friedman's Restaurant was not the only restaurant named after The Red Hen to take heat as a result of Sanders' arrival in Lexington.

In Swedesboro, N.J., a family-style restaurant of the same name has also been criticized by supporters of President Trump – receiving about 200 phone calls and seeing their Facebook rating drop to 1 star. The restaurant was also finally forced to go on social networks to clear up the problem.

"THE SWEDESBORO RED DOLL, THE NEW JERSEY NEVER BEEN AFFILIATED WITH THE RED DOLL IN VIRGINIA," says an article on the New Jersey restaurant's Facebook page: "Please check your facts before defaming an innocent company on Facebook."

Sanders' dilemma in Lexington is just the latest is a series of bad nights for members of the Trump administration.

Earlier in the week, Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security, interrupted a working dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington after protesters shouted, "Shame!" until she is gone. A few days earlier, Trump's assistant, Stephen Miller, a key advisor on immigration, was accosted by someone at another Mexican restaurant in the city, who l? A called "a fascist", according to the New York Post.

In Lexington – a spot of blues in a sea of ​​red that rivaled Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election by a 2-1 margin – most local business owners have supported the Co-owner Red Hen, Stephanie Wilkinson giving a quick welcome to Sanders.

Tom Lomax, owner of a local business, has described Wilkinson as "force of nature" and "one of the main drivers of downtown".

"We support ours, our small community," he said.

Stephen Russek, a former restaurant owner in the area, said however: "they had no right to do so".

"You have your political opinions, you do not throw someone out of your restaurant," says Russek, who lives nearby. "They should be closed."

Wilkinson told the Washington Post that her staff had called to report that Sanders was at the restaurant. She cited several reasons, including the concerns of several restaurant employees who were homosexual and knew that Sanders had defended Trump's desire to ban transgender people from being part of the military.

"Tell me what you want me to do, I can ask him to leave," Wilkinson told his team. "They said yes."