A Mississippi eatery that appeared on Man Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-ins and, Dives” is going through backlash after its homeowners posted a video providing “something free” to solely straight {couples} that stopped by to eat on the Cajun joint on Tuesday.
Controversy rapidly engulfed Darwell’s Happiness Café in Lengthy Seaside when Darwell Yeager and his spouse Nettie Mechelle made the anti-LGBTQ pitch to clients on their social media web page.
“If you come in and you’re a couple … husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, guy, girl couple, the real kind of couple,” Darwell Yeager stated earlier than his partner minimize in and stated, “Because we don’t do the trans or the lesbian or gays, I’m sorry.”
“When you come in for the next hour and a half and you are a couple, can-produce-a-child couple, we’ll give you something free,” Darwell Yeager concluded within the since-deleted video that has unfold on-line.
The restaurant particular was torched — together with by fellow native meals institutions.
“I have very recently watched a disgusting video put out by Darwell about his Tuesday ‘couples’ special. I am almost speechless. Almost,” Trax Bar and Grill, which is lower than two miles from Darwell’s, wrote on Fb this week.
“His weird antics were tolerable at best until this video but not anymore.”
A company government chef for an area restaurant group that runs seven eating places additionally spoke out, in response to NOLA.com.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but all in all, you reap what you sow,” Lauren Joffrion, of Secret Coast Restaurant Group, stated on Fb. “Hate gets you nowhere.”
Gulf Coast Equality, an LGBT non-profit, referred to as the social media submit “disheartening” and steered a boycott of Darwell’s.
“If Darwell’s won’t welcome us, we won’t support them,” the board wrote in a press release. “We’ll make the impact felt where it counts. We call on our community to come together—not just in outrage, but in action.”
A lady who picked up the telephone at a quantity listed for Nettie Yeager declined remark when reached by The Submit.
The couple later apologized on Fb, in response to NOLA.com and the Clarion Ledger.
“I would like to apologize to all my friends. If I wrote or said something that offended you… I’m not perfect… I say thing (sic) people don’t understand, misread, misunderstood, jokes maybe I shouldn’t say, get upset and say something I should have thought twice before saying.. I’m not perfect and I get my feelings hurt too,” Nettie Yeager wrote, in response to the Ledger.
Many of the social media posts tied to the couple’s accounts have been made personal Thursday evening so it’s unclear if the apology remained up.
Darwell Yeager additionally posted earlier than the reported mea culpa that he was uninterested in being bullied by the left and is restaurant wouldn’t fail, NOLA.com reported.
The café has appeared in Man Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” not less than twice because it’s been in enterprise.
