An Ohio restaurant is learning the hard way that hosting a controversial MAGA politician can come with a price — especially when some of your longtime customers want nothing to do with him.
P.J. Marley’s, a restaurant in Medina, Ohio, has been hit with angry phone calls, scathing online reviews and accusations of supporting pedophiles after its owners welcomed Republican Vivek Ramaswamy during his gubernatorial campaign.
The owners, Patty and Jon Stahl, are Republicans themselves. But they insist the campaign stop wasn’t meant to be a political endorsement — and say they had arranged the visit before Ramaswamy’s campaign unleashed one of the most controversial attack ads of the election.
That ad featured Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, who sided with her late husband after he sexually abused Acton as a child and portrayed her own daughter as a liar.
The ad sparked bipartisan outrage, with even some Republicans warning that Ramaswamy’s decision to drag Acton’s childhood sexual abuse into the campaign could backfire.
And it ultimately didn’t help him at the ballot box. Acton defeated Ramaswamy with 52.3% of the vote to his 44.4%, becoming Ohio’s first woman governor and the first Democrat elected to the office in 20 years.
Ramaswamy’s campaign announced a stop at P.J. Marley’s for October 31. The Stahls told The New York Times that the appearance had been arranged before the attack ad became public.
They said they weren’t thrilled with the ad, but hoped Ramaswamy would follow through on promises to lower property taxes and address rising electricity costs.
The couple also insisted they would have welcomed a Democratic candidate under similar circumstances. In their view, the visit was an opportunity for their small business, not an endorsement of everything Ramaswamy stood for.
But some customers clearly saw it differently.
After the appearance was announced, restaurant employees began receiving aggressive phone calls, while the business was flooded with negative comments and reviews on social media.
“Makes me sad that they are complicit of MAGA behavior,” one person wrote in a Facebook review.
“They love supporting candidates who use child s*xual abuse against the victim,” another complained.
“Never dining there, vile pedophile supporters,” one user wrote.
Another customer expressed disappointment, writing: “PJ Marley’s has great food, which makes this all the more disappointing.”
The Stahls eventually began deleting negative comments from their Facebook page as the backlash intensified.
The controversy didn’t stop online.
Protesters demonstrated outside the restaurant on the day of Ramaswamy’s visit. One neighbor, Kellie Biegel, joined the demonstration and reportedly shouted at people entering the business: “There they are, pedophile supporters!”
The restaurant’s employees also found themselves caught in the middle of the political fight.
Bartender Anthony Buchanan told the Times that one protester repeatedly challenged him, asking, “How can you work for them?”
Buchanan didn’t respond. But he said he could have explained that he was a third-grade teacher working a second job.
“I’m just trying to get my money,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ramaswamy’s political gamble didn’t pay off.
Acton defeated him by nearly eight percentage points, delivering Democrats a major victory in a state that had been governed by Republicans for 16 years.
The result also made history: Acton became the first woman elected governor of Ohio.
On election night, Ramaswamy said he had left Acton a voicemail after his defeat.
“We left her a message,” he said. “It’s a tough night for us here in Ohio.”
For the owners of P.J. Marley’s, however, the political fallout is still playing out.
They say they were simply giving a candidate an opportunity to visit their business. Some customers saw the decision as something very different — and have made it clear they won’t be coming back.
