Connecticut breakfast cafe called ‘Woke’ is getting backlash for its name

Wake up and smell the controversy.

A Connecticut breakfast co-owner named his new restaurant ‘Woke’ after its focus on morning food – but soon received a slew of complaints from conservative locals who disliked the left-wing connotation of the restaurant. name, Insider reported.

Carmen Quiroga opened the doors to Woke Breakfast & Coffee on Main Street in Coventry on January 19 – and learned in an instant the name wasn’t easy.

“When we were thinking of an idea [for the name]we obviously wanted a word that would represent something related to morning,” she told Insider.

Quiroga chose “awake,” she explained, as a take on the phrase “wake up and have a coffee.” She also liked that the word included the letter “o”, which is represented by an egg yolk in the cafe’s logo.

Quiroga was unaware that the word was often used by conservatives to refer to liberal ideology.

“I’m Mexican,” she told CT Insider.

“I don’t know what ‘awake’ means to some people.”

Woke’s early days in business, however, were quickly overshadowed by conservative residents who took issue with the name.

According to Insider, a debate over the title in The Coventry CT Citizen’s Open Forum, a private Facebook group, was so heated that moderator Tonya Landrie Ohlund threatened to delete the “ridiculous comments”.

“If you are so narrow minded that you cannot understand that the name refers to it being a breakfast establishment and nothing more then keep that to yourself and move on thing,” Ohlund chided the posters.

“It’s disgusting to read that locals are going to refuse to support a business trying to grow in our awesome little town because you don’t like the name they gave it, not even knowing how they chose it. name. Stop.”

Republican City Councilman John French told Insider that political divisions are common in the area.

“It’s a very purple city,” he explained.

A Hartford Courant survey shows just over fifty-one percent of Coventry residents voted for President Biden in the 2020 election. Four years earlier, the city narrowly sided with Donald Trump.

Despite the murmurings online, Quiroga told the outlet that no one had said anything unfavorable to his face.

“We are very, very busy. We had to close an hour later because people were waiting to try our food… Everyone said the food was great. So we feel like we have good support from the city,” she said.