This SF pizza joint can’t escape the backlash over the police incident
After the San Francisco pizzeria Receiving backlash when an employee allegedly refused to serve a group of police officers, the restaurant’s decision to fire that employee set off an even larger firestorm.
The saga began Sunday night, when the San Francisco Police Officers Association gathered chirp that a Pizza Square employee on Brannan Street “told several of our officers that they were not welcome in the restaurant”. San Francisco and other cities saw protests over the weekend after Memphis officials released video of police officers striking pictures of Nichols, a black man, during a traffic stop, resulting in Nichols’ death.
The SFPOA wrote that it had “notified the restaurant’s owners of the disgraceful and hateful actions of one of their employees,” and that the Pizza Square owners issued a “swift apology.”
Despite the apology, the police union’s tweet prompted a handful of negative Yelp reviews on Pizza Squared, in which users criticized the restaurant for not supporting the police. The police union did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment. As of Tuesday morning, Yelp has included a warning on the restaurant’s page that reads: “This business is being monitored by the Yelp support team for content related to media reports.”
“Why do you hate the cops?” wrote Yelp user Christian A from Sunnyvale. “What’s wrong with you, who do you think you are? Never do business with this company.”
“Would never eat here after reading employee comments disparaging sfpd,” writes Ruthie N of Lafayette. “A foolish monarchy deserves bad reviews if they don’t fire that writer.”
Looks like Ruthie N. She got her wish, as Pizza Square answered the police union on Twitter on Monday morning. A message posted by the restaurant reads: “This employee was a trainee and on his third day. When we told the shift manager about the incident after the fact, we told him explicitly that we did not share his views and that he was out of line. He was fired at the end of the day. When we reported before SFPOA, we’ve apologized.”
This caused an uproar on Twitter, unlike the rip-off on Yelp, where users deleted the company over its firing of an employee.
“Wow, you seem like an awful company to work for!” chirp Activist Sasha Danger.
Boot-flavored pizza, anyone? [tongue emoji] [boot emoji] [pizza emoji]”,” wrote another user.
In an email to SFGATE, owner Ryan Siu wrote, “Employee was let go because of mistreatment of a customer, not because of the police. We are happy to serve anyone who enters with a smile.” [have] Nothing else to say.”
This isn’t the first time a San Francisco food spot has found itself at the center of the city’s never-ending battle between police supporters and critics. In May of last year, Joe’s Ice Cream in the Richmond area held an event called “Ice Cream with a Cop,” which received so much negative feedback that the owner told SFGATE that she would never hold a similar event again.