Salem restaurant buried in fake reviews, hateful comments after Naomi Wolf incident

Epilogue Kitchen and Cocktails is hard to miss when walking through Salem’s downtown district. Taping the windows are tons of signs, some of them handmade. They read: “Black lives matter” and “No place for hate”.

There are large portraits of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor and, in chalk marker, the names of dozens of other people killed by police in recent years.

There is also a small cardboard sign that says: “VACCINES REQUIRED FOR SEATED SERVING”.

Despite that sign, and despite having a reservation at another Salem restaurant, in late June Naomi Wolf walked into Epilogue and argued at length with the staff about their indoor dining rule.

“So she walked by, saw our signs — she decided that meant she had to make a scene,” co-owner Jonathan Jones said.

Wolf was once a well-known feminist author — she wrote the 1990 bestseller “The Beauty Myth” and advised Bill Clinton and Al Gore — who in recent years gained attention online for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus. Her Twitter account has been deactivated, but she continues to use other social media options, including one aimed at American conservatives called Gettr.

It was there that she posted two videos of the meeting with employees at Epilogue at the end of June. In one of them, two employees repeatedly ask Wolf to leave. One points out the vaccinations required and they ask why Wolf decided to break that limit by coming in and arguing with the staff anyway.

“Well, I mean, first of all, a lot of people in the history of this nation have pushed boundaries like that,” Wolf says in the video. “And it turned out to be the right thing to do.”

Speaking to one of Epilogue’s Black employees, Wolf goes on to say that the indoor dining rule is “absolutely discriminatory.” (Under the law, discrimination is prejudice or bias against a protected class of people with respect to their race, age, gender, sexual preference, or disability. Legally, covid-19 vaccine status does not put someone into a protected class of people.)

Epilogue also offers outdoor dining for people who cannot provide proof of vaccination.

Another video shows Jones telling Wolf that she has been banned from the restaurant because of the way she treated his staff.

“You have officially been 86′d. If you ever come back, you will be trespassing, says Jones.

Wolf replies, “Well, I’m only trespassing if I come in,” as it appears to stand on the sidewalk in front of Epilogue’s front doors, near the outdoor seating area.

Wolf did not respond to OPB’s requests for comment.

Wolf’s videos on Gettr have hundreds of comments from people who have come together to harass the restaurant. Several of them make fun of Jones’ appearance and call for violence against him. And many more encourage the crowd to leave negative reviews on the site’s various online profiles. That’s when the rankings on Google and Yelp plummeted.

“We’ve had over 150 fake one-star reviews,” Jones said a week after the incident. “Most of them dive into racism pretty quickly. Pretty unbridled, raw racism.”

Jones said about 75 fake reservations were booked online in one week — made under names like “Let’s Go Brandon,” a conservative code for an insult to President Joe Biden. Epilog received hundreds of prank calls and hateful voicemails; Jones said he had to tell the staff to stop answering the phone so only he would have to bear the brunt of the hate.

“I will never eat at your restaurant now, never again,” says a woman on a voicemail that has become typical of the type that floods the restaurant’s inbox. “I hope your business goes under.”

Like many of the callers, the woman on the answering machine seemed to equate Epilogue’s policy of requiring vaccines to eat inside with racism. She went on to say that Epilogue’s food probably “tastes like segregation.”

Jones, who is black, said the menu draws inspiration from the black diaspora. You can get roast duck leg coated with apple butter and fig chili vinegar, or rabbit confit flavored with jerk spices.

Jones said he and his wife opened the restaurant about 12 years ago to express themselves creatively through food and art.

“Everything we do is designed to show the marks on our hands; to be a part of our soul, our heart, our mind,” he said.

Part of that is not being afraid to show what they believe in, he said, even if it can draw unwanted — and sometimes scary — attention.

“If you sit here long enough, you’ll see just unbridled hatred directed at the restaurant,” Jones said. “Every single day people walk by. They turn us, they shout ‘All Lives Matter.'”

Since its inception, Jones said, Epilogue has been subject to racist graffiti and violent attacks. Much of this has been recorded on a security camera in the restaurant and posted on Epilogue’s Instagram account.

In one video, a man and a woman appear to make a white power symbol at the camera, then walk away. In another video, a man appears to be trying to break the glass doors, slamming into them several times. Jones said the incident broke the glass.

Chris Young, a regular customer and friend of Jones’, said racist incidents seem to have become more prevalent in Salem since the racial justice protests of 2020, but there hasn’t been much acknowledgment of that from city leaders.

“Once in a while you’ll have a councilor have some stern words in the middle of a meeting or something,” he said. “But in terms of something tangible happening, something specific to address this problem, you very rarely, if ever, hear about it.”

Salem Mayor Chuck Bennet and City Councilman Chris Hoy, who is slated to be the next mayor, did not respond to requests for comment.

Jones said he has gone to Salem police in the past, but he didn’t feel listened to, so he hasn’t reported the Wolf incident or the subsequent harassment.

The way he sees it, people driven to violence against his restaurant are angered by his very existence.

“The local hatred comes from us daring to speak our mind; we dare to create space and push back against the status quo of a historically white utopia,” Jones said. “And we’re also good at the products and the service we do, and that just drives them up the wall.”

But while it may draw hate from some people, others seem to love Epilogue twice as much. Madalena Martin, an employee at Epilogue, said the restaurant has become a gathering place for people who may feel like misfits because of their race, gender or political ideals, especially in an area that tends to be conservative.

“Now I’m here and I’m surrounded by other activists and other people who are focused on the disruption of oppression in our society … It’s just healing,” Martin said.

Jones — who is originally from the Philadelphia area — said no matter what happens, Salem is his community now, and no amount of harassment or violence will scare him away.

“They can beat our windows, they can threaten my life,” Jones said. “… I’m still going to be the excellent person that I am.”