Not that it was necessarily a fun ride for the owners of the Red Hen, but apparently all’s well that ends well.
Stephanie Wilkinson, the co-owner of the Lexington, Virginia, restaurant that ejected Sarah Huckabee Sanders last summer for being an awful human being, has written an op-ed for The Washington Post detailing some of the struggles and stresses she’s gone through over the past year.
They included fake one-star Yelp! reviews, a hacked phone line, phony reservations, doxxing, a feckless insult from the Ocher Abomination, feces-smeared letters, and much, much more.
But, now, the business is thriving:
When we opened after a 10-day hiatus, our dining room was full. In the following weeks, people who had never been to the Shenandoah Valley traveled out of their way to eat with us. Hundreds of orders for our Red Hen spice blend poured in. And the love spread far beyond our door, as supporters sent thousands of dollars’ in donations in our honor to our local food pantry, our domestic violence shelter and first responders.
After nearly a year, I’m happy to say that business is still good. Better than good, actually. And besides the boost to our area charities, our town’s hospitality and sales revenue have gone up, too.
Our haters may have believed that there were more of “them” than of “us,” but it turns out we have more than enough to keep us cooking. And to everyone who might be fearful about taking a stand, I say don’t be. Resistance is not futile, for you or your business.
With everything that’s happened, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there really are more of us than there are of them. Hillary got millions more votes than our racist-in-chief. People really are repulsed by our administration putting babies in cages, and they’re more than willing to reward business owners who take a brave stand against such atrocities.
We’re going to win this fight. I’ve never doubted that. And stories like this offer encouragement on days when I feel particularly discouraged.
And I sincerely believe we’ll win in 2020, too. We just have to fight for it.
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