This Cafe Owner and Meateater Was Able to Turn All of the World's Vegans Against Him

by N/A, 10 years ago | 8 min read

Paul Stenson is owner of The White Moose Cafe in Dublin, Ireland, and back in August he started a firestorm on the internet for a snarky thought aimed at potential vegan customers of his restaurant. After the Facebook post went live, then viral, vegans from all over the world (read: from the safety of their own WiFi connection not inside the restaurant) came on the attack for Stenson.

Negative reviews, petitions to get his cafe shut down and even death threats didn't slow him down though.

food Business Internet Ireland Vegetarian Europe Food/Cooking Restaurants Entrepreneurship Non-Premium

So, this is where it all began:

As you can see, it comes across as somewhat rude, but really what he's saying is that he'd be more than happy to help out all customers (i.e. vegetarians and vegans) given proper notice. He's there to cook for them and give them what they want.<

And that's when the negative reviews started flowing in like crazy...

But as you can see, Stenson had no intention of back down from the haters. He acknowledges that many of the reviews are from people who've never set foot in the restaurant, but just want to complain on the internet, as trolls tend to do.

Seriously, he's not going to back down from these angry vegans, no matter what they say:

He even goes as far as to ban any vegans from coming into the restaurant:

Clearly he's just being a sarcastic jerk, but it's sarcasm nonetheless.

But then, things get a little dicey, as Stenson's sarcasm seems to become a little too real. After "apologizing" he says that he's serious about shooting vegans dead if they plan on entering his cafe:

This is where the joke has lost its way. He initially seemed as if he was willing to help any and all customers, but at this point he's provoking vegetarian and vegan would-be customers. Doesn't seem to good for business at this point.

Again he pretends to apologize, but notice how he ends the note:

"P.S. F*ck you." Well, that just negated the whole thing. This guy really has it out for vegans, and there's no way this could be working in his favor, you'd think.

Then, Stenson takes this whole thing a step further:

Yeah, so he basically just dared all the vegans at large to change their ways and go back to or begin eating meat. He just won't let this whole thing go, will he?

And it's not even just the vegans he's making upset. Seriously, this whole thing is just bad for business...

Well, you'd think it would be bad for business.

Stenson even went as far as to update the cover photo to mock all the vegan protestors he's been getting online...

And in person.

Yes, The White Moose Cafe had an army of protestors outside of its front doors, but unfortunately their efforts weren't heard by Stenson; probably because he wasn't there... yet:

These vegans had their fair reason for wanting to do this, but if they're going to organize an effort such as this, they should probably get organized first and look up the hours of operation.

Reminder: Stenson is never at loss for words, especially when he has a chance to throw snark vegans' way. So, he uses this as a chance to let them know how much their online tactics have helped him with business...

Which is not what they wanted to happen...AT ALL!

Because, as you'll see, even all the negative reviews have somehow worked out in Stenson's favor. He explains here:

"Any press is good press, even bad press." That cliche is right here in living proof.

And there's plenty of that to go around. There's an entire Facebook page dedicated to being against The White Moose Cafe:

And it has a modest following considering it only was created a few days ago, with a few thousand likes.

And still, people want to report him to the police for his threatened actions...

But he doesn't care if they do or not.

He kept attacking them because, like we've been building up to, Stenson turned this whole thing around into positive reviews, and got the last laugh, so to speak...

Just look at the overwhelming amount of 5 star reviews as compared to the negative reviews. 12,000 and counting 5-star rewiews as compared to less than half a thousand and counting on the opposite end.

In the end, it would appear that Stenson won the battle against vegans, but he brings it all back to the beginning. He's willing and happy to serve vegan customers...

What do you think? Does he mean it?

We'll leave you with this: meet Paul Stenson, the man behind all this internet vegan madness:

Seems innocent enough, right?! He wouldn't really kill vegans who try to eat at his cafe, would he?! We'd like to think his most recent update was a sincere gesture and all customers are welcome, but at this point we don't think any vegans would be willing to support his place of business, no matter how welcoming he claims to be.