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Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant, a Rhode Island eatery, has garnered immense traction on social media after comparing the recent heat wave to concentration camp ovens. Netizens, however, did not think the dark joke was very funny and were shocked by the anti-Semitic reference.
On Friday, the Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant took to their Facebook page and posted an image of Anne Frank with the caption “#ohboy.” Across a black and white picture of famed diarist Anne Frank, the words read:
“It’s hotter than an oven out there… And I should know!”
The meme has since been deleted from the restaurant’s official Facebook page. It remains unclear whether the restaurant took it down themselves or if Facebook took it down as part of their policy against hate speech.
However, that did not stop angry netizens from calling out the restaurant for its insensitive post.
During the second world war, Anne Frank and her Jewish family hid in an attic as millions of Jews across Europe were forced to work in labor camps and being killed in a genocide. Anne maintained a diary between 1942 and 1944 which later went on to be published as a memoir titled, The Diary of Anne Frank.
The 15-year-old teenager died of Typhus in 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Netizens outraged at Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant’s Facebook post, slam "disgusting" brand of humor
After seeing the post, Jessica Machado, a radio jockey from New Bedford, Massachusetts, revealed on her show that she had contacted the owner of the establishment, who sounded irritated and asked her not to call again. Machado revealed to WBSM:
“He doubled down on it and said he had just Googled it, 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 and then, click, they hung up.”
Internet users were unsurprisingly enraged by the social media post and found it insensitive as well as uncalled for. Several netizens blasted the eatery. A few of the numerous tweets read:
Atlantic Sports Bar & Restaurant issues formal apology
Since amassing immense negative traction on social media, the eatery issued an apology for the social media post. In their official statement, they admitted that the meme was "poorly thought out" and emphasized that it was not a reflection of their personal values as individuals in society. They continued:
“There is no excuse for the sharing of this post, and there is nothing we can do to rectify it, all we can do now is offer our deepest apology to those who were rightfully hurt by our actions. The Atlantic Restaurant prides itself on being a tolerant, inclusive and safe space for all people.”
The restaurant further added that they will be “vigilant” with posts that are uploaded online to ensure that something like this does not happen again. They went on to thank supporters who rightfully criticized them, acknowledging that it was a learning moment for the team at Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant.
