Yelp reviewers rip Indiana pizza shop that endorsed 'religious freedom' law

One Indiana business is getting slammed online after giving the state’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act a rave review.

On Tuesday, the proprietors of Walkerton’s Memories Pizza praised Gov. Mike Pence for protecting religious freedom and said they would choose not to serve their pies at any same-sex weddings.


“If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no,” Crystal O’Connor, whose family owns Memories Pizza, told ABC57.

O’Connor said she “definitely agree[s] with the bill” and called the pizza shop a “Christian establishment.”

“We’re not discriminating against anyone, that’s just our belief and anyone has the right to believe anything,” O’Connor said.

As the story circulated online, Yelp reviewers immediately took to the restaurant ratings website to give the pizza shop some colorful reviews.

“They have a great pizza. It’s the intolerance special with toppings of hate, bigotry, stupidity, and old fashioned beliefs,” one review by “Jarrett J.” of Sydney, Australia said.

Another Yelp reviewer posted a photo of naked men holding pizza boxes.

“Food tastes like discrimination,” a third review said.

According to O’Connor, she does not think the bill encourages bigotry.

“I don’t think it’s targeting gays. I don’t think it’s discrimination. It’s supposed to help people that have a religious belief,” she told ABC57.

The restaurant now has an average Yelp rating of one out of five stars.

According to a Yelp spokesperson, many of these reviews will be removed shortly.

“Reviews aren’t the place for rants about a business’s employment practices, political ideologies, extraordinary circumstances, or other matters that don’t address the core of the consumer experiences,” the spokesperson said in a statement to POLITICO. “Yelp reviews are required to describe a firsthand consumer experience, not what someone reads in the news.”

Reviews that are in violation of Yelp’s content guidelines, which do not allow for reviews “that only attack a business’s political ideologies,” are removed.

On Wednesday, one person purchased the domain name www.memoriespizza.com and created a fake website to mock the pizza shop.

“Call us to cater your gay wedding!” the top reads.

Under “Our Toppings,” the site lists “cheese, sausage, pepperoni, discrimination and repressed homosexual urges.”

“No servers were hacked during the making of this website,” the bottom of the page reads. “If you own a business, buy a domain.”