The boycott sparked violent threats and online harassment, but it also prompted a cascade of support from celebrities

The National Rifle Association called on members to boycott a Dallas brunch restaurant this weekend after it pledged to donate a portion of its proceeds to “implementing reasonable and effective gun regulations”.



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The boycott, announced as around 80,000 people attended the NRA’s convention in the city, sparked violent threats and a cascade of online harassment, one of the restaurant’s owners said. Messages included “you’ll wish you had a gun when we’re done with you” and “I would come in and eat but I don’t want to be there when the bomb goes off”.

But the NRA’s social media posts criticizing Ellen’s, an upscale Dallas diner that serves all-day brunch, also prompted a cascade of support from celebrities and other supporters of stricter gun laws. The restaurant’s sales were up 20% over a typical Saturday, co-owner Joe Groves told the Guardian.

Ellen’s is just blocks away from the location of a 2016 mass shooting that targeted Dallas police during an anti-violence march, killing five and wounding seven. Staff knew many of the officers targeted and “we lost two very close friends”, Groves said.

“The response from the NRA at the time was that we needed better mental health, we needed better parenting, we needed anything except maybe better regulations.”

Like many in Dallas, Groves, 54, was not overjoyed when the NRA chose the city as the site of its annual meeting for members, bringing thousands of gun rights advocates together just weeks after students across the country held walkouts and protests against the NRA’s influence in politics. Groves said he had publicly debated on Facebook “in not-so-delicate terms” whether the restaurant should accept money from big groups of NRA members.

While he is not a gun owner, Groves’ father was a hunter and he has shot guns at the range with friends.

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“It’s fun,” he said. “I’m not anti-gun, I’m not anti-second amendment, I’m anti-NRA. The NRA is to guns as the Westboro Baptist Church [an aggressive homophobic group] is to Christians. You can believe in the second amendment and still think the NRA is a bunch of crazies.”

Grove said he had been particularly offended by what he saw as the NRA “attacking the victims” of the Parkland high school shooting in Florida, in which 17 people were killed in February. That seemed to be “a new tactic”, he said.

Rather than telling NRA members they were not welcome at brunch, though, Ellen’s added a message on its receipts noting that portion of proceeds would be given to organizations supporting “reasonable and effective gun regulations”.



A “courteous and polite” customer warned Groves that the phrase might be interpreted by his friends in the NRA as an extreme statement. “‘Responsible and effective’ to them means taking everybody’s guns away,” Groves said the customer warned, suggesting Ellen’s clarify its wording.

But it was too late. On Friday, the NRA’s Twitter feed shared an original version of the receipt, warning meeting attendees to “steer clear of Ellen’s” and adding the hashtag “#StandAndFight”.

In response, the restaurant received at least a dozen angry phone calls as well as furious attacks on social media, including a flood of politically-motivated one-star Yelp reviews, Groves said. The attacks included “every expletive that you can imagine”, he said. Some callers were “asking our staff where they were born, are they illegal”.

“We’ve had people call and just go: ‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’”

NRA (@NRA) Attn @AnnualMeetings attendees. Steer clear of Ellen’s in downtown Dallas! Why go there when there are so many other great choices. 🤔#sorrynotsorry #StandAndFight #DefendTheSecond pic.twitter.com/joX7pPoPm4

People giving names like “Donald Trump”, “Mike Pence”, “Mike Hunt” and “Richard Glock” tried to fill up the restaurant’s online reservation service to block legitimate reservations, he said.

Chuckling, Groves said some parts of the harassment were funny. The restaurant received an order, for example, from “Charlton Heston” whose email was “yousuck@yahoo.com”. He had given a credit card number and paid $16.24 “to play a prank on us”.

“It makes no sense,” Groves said.

By late Sunday, Groves’ cellphone was still filling up with notifications of new social media messages, including about 16 in the first seven minutes of his interview with the Guardian. He said had done at least 19 media interviews over two days.

The amended receipt, which pledged to donate a portion of proceeds to supporting “reasonable and effective gun regulations” that “protect citizens’ second amendment rights and also help reduce needless gun violence”, only generated more outrage, Groves said. Some people accused him of backtracking on his position, he said.

The NRA’s Twitter feed posted multiple times over the weekend about its battle with the small local restaurant. The official theme of the NRA’s 2018 meeting was “A Show of Strength”.

While NRA members did appear to avoid Ellen’s, Groves said, except for a handful who may not have kept up with social media, business was up overall. Customers had also directly donated an extra $1,700 in support of a gun violence prevention fundraiser.

Groves said he would personally match the contributions from the restaurant proceeds and customer donations, and that he expected to donate more than $10,000 to an as-yet-unnamed gun violence prevention organization. While he had chosen the group, he said, he would not announce it publicly until later this week.

By targeting the restaurant, Groves said, the NRA “actually increased the donation”.