Source: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images / Getty
The New Jersey airport restaurant that a New York Times columnist apparently tried to disingenuously shame over the cost of a meal just happens to be owned by a Black man who clearly took umbrage at the suggestion.
David Brooks, who gets paid to share his opinions, on Wednesday night tweeted a photo of a burger and fries and let all his followers know how he really felt once he got the bill.
“This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport,” Brooks posted on the app formerly known as Twitter. “This is why Americans think the economy is terrible.”
Lurking behind the “meal” is a glass of brown liquid under a mountain of ice cubes. More on that later.
Brooks was immediately dragged on social media by folks who understood that the columnist was likely traveling for work and would expense it only for the New York Times to eventually reimburse the same man whose net worth is reportedly at the very least $1 million. Among those to criticize Brooks was writer Joyce Carroll Oates, who found the social media post about food to be in poor taste.
“(bar bill: $66. food bill: $12. tip: $0 N Y Times expense account),” Oates wrote in a post clearly mocking Brooks for complaining about something he actually wasn’t even paying for.
As fate would have it, turns out Oates was actually much more accurate than she may have initially thought.
After NJ.com wrote a news article reporting how Brooks went viral with his complaint, the owners of the restaurant in question took to social media to add some more context to the columnist’s words.
“Looks like someone was knocking back some serious drinks – Bar tab was almost 80% and he’s complaining about the cost of his meal,” the Facebook account for 1911 Smoke House Barbeque posted on Thursday afternoon before adding: “keep drinking buddy – we get paid off everything.”
They later teased a promo for a “D BROOKS SPECIAL” with a price of $78 crossed out and replaced by $17.78, presumably the actual price of a burger and fries at the restaurant.
To make matters worse for Brooks, his initial post on the app formerly known as Twitter was appended with a disclaimer that linked to 1911 Smoke House Barbeque’s Facebook post saying “Readers added context they thought people might want to know,” before adding: “The restaurant has noted that 80% of this tab was Brooks’ bar bill.”
It was unclear how many drinks Brooks had with his meal.
It’s also unclear what Brooks’ objective was with that social media post, particularly since he never mentioned the name of the restaurant.
But NJ.com reported that 1911 Smoke House Barbeque has “an outpost at Terminal A in Newark Airport” called Smokehouse BBQ where the columnist ate.
A website devoted to economic development in New Jersey showcased Maurice Hallett as the owner of 1911 Smoke House Barbeque, a restaurant in the capital city of Trenton that the Black man said he was only able to reopen after the pandemic through a municipal loan program.
“With this loan, we were able to keep all 21 employees on board, get the cleaning supplies necessary to adhere to new restaurant requirements and help the community,” Hallett said about the $20,000 loan from the Trenton Small Business Emergency Loan Fund Program.
Black-owned businesses have finally begun to rebound after the pandemic, according to Forbes, and Hallett is apparently riding that same wave of success. The last thing he needs is a viral tweet spreading misinformation to derail all the post-pandemic progress he’s made.
Perhaps all of the above will compel Brooks to think twice before he fires off another social media post that he knows to be intellectually dishonest.
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