Restaurant Owner Changes Name Over Ebola Fears
The Brooklyn, Minnesota restaurant Mama Ti’s African Kitchen has seen business drop substantially since the Ebola scaremongering.
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Kellita Whisnant has owned Mama Ti’s African Kitchen in Brooklyn Park, Minn. for three years. Now that confirmed cases of Ebola have reached U.S. soil, she says business is down by about 50 percent.
“This African name that brought people in before, is now hurting me,” Whisnant told Minneapolis-St.Paul’s KMSP Fox9 . “We get the jokes, the ridicule.”
Amid declining sales—and a customer flat out asking her if the restaurant had Ebola—Whisnant covered up the word “African” on her restaurant’s outdoor sign. “Just putting that tape up there triggered emotions that I keep down, but that really hurt,” a teary Whisnant told KMSP.
But she worries the simple cosmetic change may not be enough to get customers back in her store. She has posted a notice in Mama Ti’s to assure customers that her suppliers are local, despite the Liberian-themed menu. Yet with flagging sales, Whisnant is also considering changing the menu entirely.
“What could I bring in at this point to satisfy your fear,” Whisnant questions. “Will you come in and eat out of this restaurant if I sell Philly cheese? If I do jumbo wings and fries?”[su_csky_ad]
tiredoftea October 27th, 2014 at 1:47 pm
Stupid is spreading faster than Ebola itself ever could!
Red Mann October 27th, 2014 at 3:16 pm
Some of it’s stupid, some is deliberate as an attack on Obama. RW mantra: must instill fear, must instill fear, must instill fear.
tiredoftea October 27th, 2014 at 3:45 pm
It’s a bonus when they can hurt a small, minority owned business and blame Obama all at once!
rg9rts October 28th, 2014 at 10:28 am
You know that McCain is planning an invasion of Ebola
Khary A October 27th, 2014 at 2:20 pm
I find it funny, how many Chinese restaurants went under or had issues with sales or had people attack them during the bird flu situation?
rg9rts October 28th, 2014 at 10:27 am
Especially those with General Chu’s chicken
Khary A October 28th, 2014 at 2:43 pm
America is never going to be ready to say no to that deliciousness.
jasperjava October 27th, 2014 at 3:03 pm
After 9/11, and its connection to Afghanistan, a woman walking an Afghan dog was verbally abused in Central Park.
When France refused to join Dubya’s so-called “coalition of the willing”, right-wingers got so mad that they stopped buying French’s mustard, despite the fact that it has zero connection to France.
You can’t fix stupid.
Stevojax October 27th, 2014 at 5:26 pm
You just can’t fix stupid. Ebola is transmitted through body fluids. It is not classified as a airborne disease. On World Net Daily today they are cleverly suggesting that the ebola virus can be transmitted through the air. What they are doing is suggesting that sneezing in someones face or coughing droplets of spital into someones face is proof that a disease is airborne , it is not. There’s nothing funny about misleading people for money. They are taking quotes from the physician in NY who contracted ebola out of context. He said you can contract the disease if the patient self aerosoltizes spit or mucous directly into someones face. Thats does not mean that the disease is airborne illness.
Anomaly 100 October 27th, 2014 at 7:06 pm
I wish everyone would read your comment and take notice. The hysterical right wing media, and some of the left, are not helping at all.
rg9rts October 28th, 2014 at 10:26 am
and they are winning…..
rg9rts October 28th, 2014 at 10:25 am
People should stop licking the sidewalk
rg9rts October 28th, 2014 at 10:24 am
I would have told the idiot that I had ebowla soup, ebowla chili, ebowla gumbo…you get the idea…