CT Restaurant Threatened In Backlash Over Sarah Sanders Booting

OLD SAYBROOK, CT — A case of mistaken identity has proven costly, and to be quite the headache, for a restaurant in Old Saybrook that unwittingly became ensnared in the fallout of White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia on Friday night. The Red Hen Restaurant on Main Street in Old Saybrook, which is more than 500 miles away from the restaurant that shares the same name in Lexington, Virginia, has been flooded with hateful, threatening messages, bad reviews, calls for a boycott and more since Sanders shared her experience on Twitter on Saturday morning.

Sanders said in the Tweet that she was “told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.”

By the time Shelley Deproto, owner of the Red Hen in Old Saybrook, arrived at the restaurant on Saturday afternoon there were already 50 phone messages waiting for her, according to the New London Day. Deproto told the Day the messages “were threatening, absolutely hateful, some really angry people…. It was nasty. They said we’re going to get you.”

The restaurant was also flooded with fake bookings for large parties, fake expensive takeout orders, along with bad reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor, according to the Hartford Courant. Deproto told the Courant she considered not opening on Saturday due to some of the threatening messages, but persevered and opened like normal. She is also working with Yelp and TripAdvisor to remove the fake reviews that came from people outside of Connecticut.

Similar incidents have been reported in other states where restaurants share the same name as the eatery in Virginia, including in Swedesboro, New Jersey where the manager of the Red Hen Restaurant said she received 100 calls within about six hours on Saturday afternoon. "One person called and threatened to burn us down," Elizabeth Pope, operating manager of the Red Hen in Swedesboro told Patch.

The Red Hen in Old Saybrook tried to clear up the confusion on social media after being inundated with angry comments.

“Good afternoon, it seems as if there has been some confusion,” the Red Hen wrote on Facebook. “We are a small privately owned bistro located in Old Saybrook CT. We have absolutely no affiliation with any other Red Hen Restaurant anywhere else.”

It didn’t stop the insults.

“People! PLEASE. Do not react before you know which FB page to which you are posting,” the Red Hen wrote in another post. “This Red Hen is over 500 miles away from the Red Hen in Lexington Virginia. We were kindly serving ALL of our customers Friday night with NO knowledge of what was happening in Virginia! We have no affiliation with Red Hen in Virginia But please stop fighting! Stop insulting each other! Love, Red Hen Restaurant, Old Saybrook, CT.”

That wasn’t enough for some people. One commenter, “Joey,” responded to the post saying, “You’re all the same company, run by a bunch of hateful PIGS!!!”

To which the Red Hen Restaurant replied: “Hi Joey, We aren't affiliated. We don't hate. We cook.”

And for others, it didn’t matter if they were affiliated with the Virginia restaurant or not, with another commenter saying “Disgusting and so very petty. I don't care if you are affiliated or not......won't patronize such a small minded business.”

Photo via US Embassy in Ukraine