A Rhode Island restaurant is getting grilled for a gross social media post that compared the region’s recent heat wave to concentration camp ovens.
On Friday, Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant in Tiverton posted a picture of famed diarist Anne Frank with the caption “#ohboy” on its Facebook page, ABC6 Rhode Island reported. Across a black-and-white portrait of Frank were the words: “It’s hotter than an oven out there… And I should know!” The meme has since been deleted from the eatery’s page.
After the post went viral and was thereafter removed from the restaurant’s page, calls for a public apology heightened.
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“Wow a racist pit,” Amy Ann commented on an unrelated Facebook post on the restaurant’s page. “Don’t patronize until they apologize.”
On a photo advertising the restaurant’s swordfish Mozambique, Karen Lamson Mckenny wrote, “Unbelievable that anyone would find that [meme] funny. It’s disgusting, horrific, and you need to actually apologize to start. And then again and again and again. I can’t get my head around who would make the meme or share it. Shame on you.”
“Atlantic Sports Bar & Restaurant absolutely revolting, you disgusting piece of human filth,” RK Chambers commented. “Take responsibility for that horrific meme you posted[.] that was beyond horrific levels of poor taste.”
On a post showcasing the restaurant’s steak tips, Amy Ann wrote, “Ewww [with] a side of naziism?”
Some social media users accused the restaurant of deleting negative comments from its page.
“Keep deleting the posts and we will just keep reposting them - you anti-Semitic losers,” Sean Christopher posted. “it’s not going to be that easy to make this go away.”
“Stop being cowards. Either apologize for your insensitive meme and do better or own it. Your choice,” Jeffrey Fontaine wrote.
Frank and her family, who were Jewish, went into hiding in an attic when millions of Jews across Europe were being forced into ghettos and labor camps during the Holocaust. During this period, Frank kept a diary that later became the famous Diary of Anne Frank. At the age of 15, Frank and her family were discovered by Nazis and shipped off to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. People who were not deemed strong enough to work in the labor camp were immediately taken to gas chambers and murdered. Frank did not survive the Holocaust, dying from typhus fever in 1945.
Jessica Machado, a radio talk show host in New Bedford, Massachusetts, said during her show on Saturday that she contacted the owner of the Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant for an explanation of the shocking meme, 1420 WBSM reported. She said the owner sounded annoyed with her and told her that he thought the post was funny after finding it online.
“He thought it was funny and that they were very, very busy and it was very hot there, and that they didn’t have time to deal with my concerns or questions. He told me not to call them back,” she said, according to WBSM.
Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant, which specializes in pizza, seafood, and Italian cuisine, did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
