Remember the Red Hen restaurant that kicked Sarah Sanders out because she works for Trump? I know, it feels like it was forever-ago.
Well it was only three months ago and the whole town is still struggling to recover from that incident:
ROANOKE – Rockbridge Regional Tourism approved a recovery plan to boost its marketing after The Red Hen restaurant controversy brought a slew of negative national media coverage this summer.
The regional tourism board, with members from Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County, met with the Lexington City Council on Thursday for an update on tourism initiatives and numbers.
The board had initially approved the recovery plan soon after news of The Red Hen controversy was spreading across the country. At the end of June, the restaurant’s owner declined to serve presidential press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she visited the restaurant.
Sanders tweeted the day after the incident that she had been asked to leave because she works for President Donald Trump. Soon after, Lexington was flooded with protesters who stood outside the restaurant, chanted and held signs. Others posted both positive and negative reviews of the restaurant online.
All three localities met and decided to pull together emergency funds to increase digital marketing and spread positive messages of the area, especially Lexington, which brings in the largest number of tourists.
Typically the money is saved. But each locality agreed the region was in desperate need of positive coverage after The Red Hen incident.
They are still receiving letters from upset Americans:
Director of Marketing Patty Williams said the area is still feeling effects from the controversy — the tourism office received a letter Thursday from a family in Georgia who said they would never come back to the area because of what happened. And during the immediate aftermath of the incident, the tourism office received thousands of phone calls and emails.
“For a town our size, it was a significant impact,” Williams said.
To be honest I would have thought the American people would have forgotten about the incident by now, such that tourism in the area would be back to normal. But apparently that’s not the case, with the town looking to spend emergency money to increase advertising to get people back to the area.
Isn’t it amazing what one bad decision in one little restaurant can do to a whole town? I hope it was worth it, but my guess is that the restaurant is probably struggling with the rest of the town.