One of the owners of the Centre Street Cafe and two other restaurants in Jamaica Plain has spent the day trying to get Facebook to remove a string of bogus hostile reviews sparked by an anti-Trump video an employee posted on his own personal page.

Keith Harmon says one-star ratings on the Centre Street Cafe's Facebook review page started last night. At first, he said, he began responding to them because he takes criticism seriously. Then he noticed the people attaching negative "reviews" to their ratings, including one alleging an employee had offered sexual acts to the supposed reviewer in the men's room. As he was reading that one, he said, another one came in:

Place was full of liberals. Trying to kick out trump supporters. I was spit at and stuff thrown at me for my political choices. One specific employee ... was swearing at me and even threw a drink at me because I didn't support his choice in gay marriage.

Harmon pieced together that the employee in question had posted a link to an anti-Trump video - on his own personal Facebook page - and that Trump supporters followed a link from there to Centre Street Cafe, which he listed as his workplace.

"Honestly, it was a terrible night," Harmon said.

This morning, Harmon posted a note on his personal Facebook page about "today's unexpected challenge as a small restaurant."

People who actually know where Jamaica Plain is and who go to the Centre Street Cafe - or Tres Gatos or Casa Verde - and people who own other Boston-area restaurants have risen up in defense, flooding the restaurant reviews page with five-star reviews, such as this one by Chris Lin, the owner of Seven Star Street Bistro in Roslindale:

An amazing neighborhood cafe with craveable pastas and service that reflects the ownership and staff's longtime dedication to service. Love having CSC just around the corner in JP!

"I'm almost stunned at how many people came out of the woodwork who are JP people and restaurant people," Harmon said.

Harmon said the employee faces no trouble at work because of his post. "As a business, we have no right to tell people what to do outside the workplace," he said, continuing, however, that on a personal level, he suggested to the employee he lay low for a while, because the sort of people who write the things they did "tend to be fairly dangerous." In fact, he said, managers at the restaurants will pay special attention to customers leaving tonight, to make sure they get out safely. And he said he will contact police at District E-13 for advice.

Harmon acknowledges that, personally, he agrees with his worker on Trump, but that he would never use his business to express that view - and "I certainly never thought it was something that would affect our business or the people I know."