NJ restaurant sparks backlash over Proud Boys Burger with white American cheese and cancel culture coleslaw

A New Jersey restaurant put a hamburger on its menu dedicated to the “Proud Boys” — leading to a massive online backlash and the owner apologizing for appearing to honor the far-right group.Aqua Blu Kitchen & Cocktails’ “Proud Boys Burger” included ingredients that were listed on the menu as “white American cheese,” “layers of truth,” “cancel culture coleslaw,” and “liberty sauce.”After an online firestorm of outrage began when a customer uploaded a picture of the menu, owner Cathy Varriale tried to distance herself from her eatery’s greasy item. “I know this may sound ridiculous, but I didn’t know what a Proud Boy was,” she told NJ Advance Media, explaining that the idea for the burger came from one of her chefs.“I thought it was, you know, a proud boy.”Varriale – who noted her eatery has previously featured both a Sleepy Joe and a Trump Burger – said her phone and inbox were flooded with messages after the special was advertised in a now-deleted Facebook post as “layered with boldness and liberty.”She quickly asked her chef if the burger represented something disrespectful before removing the post and reprinting the menus.

But her efforts didn’t stop the poor reception, which she said has been a “nightmare,” the outlet reported. “Now that I know what it is, I completely understand,” the emotional owner said.“But how do you fix it? I don’t know how to fix it.”Varriale said her restaurant has featured themed burgers every Thursday for the last eight years, with the ill-named special one of four listed that night. She had asked her staff to create two burgers this week based on their family – a request that has turned into her disputing claims that her staff and their families are linked to the Proud Boys organization.“It was a bad decision,” Varriale said.“It was stupidity.It was ignorance.

But we do not support hatred or Nazism or any of that.”She said angry callers have made threat...