Vegans not Ha-Pea!

An Island restaurateur has revealed how militant vegan keyboard warriors tried to destroy her business.

Sally Cooper opened her bistro at The Kitchen at London House in Ventnor last year, and explained how ‘all hell broke loose’ when she announced vegan food would not be on the menu.

Sally was speaking after vegan activists gated-crashed Australian celebrity chef, John Mountain’s restaurant in Fyre, Perth, last week after he announced he was banning vegans. They came into his premises with a loudspeaker, which was blaring sounds of pigs squealing in distress before being slaughtered.

Writing in yesterday’s (Thursday) Daily Mail, she said: “I posted a statement on our Facebook page warning I was not going to bow down to bullies on social media.

“I said, ‘It is not a given that we should adapt our menu to suit your preference. If you want vegan food, go to a vegan restaurant.’”

However, things took a turn for the worse, when fake reviews opened up on Google and Tripadvisor leaving one-star reviews when the customers had not even visited the restaurant. Sally claimed every bad review was poisonous, threatening to do damage to the business, with one woman screaming down the telephone line calling her a ‘murdering b****’.

Things finally turned a corner when she started receiving messages of support from strangers who made their own bookings. Sally told the IW Observer yesterday that a lot of the support came from vegetarians, and her regular customers continued to support her. She added: “There’s a real problem for small businesses like mine. We can’t tailor our dishes to every kind of diner. If a customer books and lets us know that one of the party is vegan, of course we will go out of the way to provide a suitable meal. But that doesn’t mean it will be going on the menu and we can’t do it without advance warning.”