Wyn Delano
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) If all press is good press, then The Red Hen Restaurant in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of D.C. had a red-letter weekend. The upscale restaurant, about a mile from the capitol building has absolutely no relation to the one that refused service to press secretary Sarah Sanders, yet they are being harassed as if it did.
“We’ve gotten a lot of social media feedback,” restaurant communications director Alyssa Turner told WMAL. “[We’ve gotten] emails, some threatening, some just rude. We’ve gotten phone calls – we’ve had to resort to turning our phones off during service. We got egged last night.”
Facing all this harassment, the restaurant has been on a media blitz to try and separate itself from the Red Hen in Lexington, almost 200 miles away.
“We’re actually going to start using the hashtag #wearenotthatredhen” Ms. Turner said.
The incident began on Friday when Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was refused service at the Lexington Red Hen. Even though Sanders specified the Lexington locale of the eatery, many people still confused it with the Bloomingdale restaurant.
And just when things were begging to cool off, President Trump himself weighed in on the incident in a Monday morning tweet that didn’t specify the location of the restaurant.
“This morning’s its even worse,” Turner said.
Head Chef and owner Mark Friedman said that his last 72 hours have been a “surreal” experience, but he’s confident that the restaurant will come out positively in the end.
“Our success is based on our reputation and I don’t think our reputation has been tarnished in the least – if anything its been elevated,” he said.
Asked whether he would invite Sarah Sanders to dine at his restaurant, Friedman said that she is welcome to – but that she wouldn’t get special treatment.
“I’d say to Ms. Sanders that we take reservations a month out and it gets difficult for large parties…that’s one of the reasons people love us at the Red Hen is everybody is treated with the same dignity and respect and level of hospitality.”
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