Two days ago, Michael Avila, the owner of The Bushwick Coffee Shop, decided he had some things to get off his chest about “the Jews” and how they were bad. Yesterday the comments were brought to light and as is the case when these things hit the internet, a shitstorm ensued. Despite Avila telling the Daily News that he was just being a bold truth teller and he didn’t see what the big deal was, the rest of the internet wasn’t convinced, flooding the shop’s Facebook page (and the wrong Yelp page) with negative reviews.
Most, if not all of the reviews on The Bushwick Coffee Shop’s Facebook page were along the lines of the above one-star review, although just like how the original rant got over 30 likes, there were a few scattered five-star “atta boy” reviews congratulating Avila being an unrepentant anti-Semite.
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There was an innocent bystander in all of the internet outrage, with the Yelp page of the Bushwick Coffee House being inundated with reviews calling the owners racists , posting links to the story about the Bushwick Coffee Shop, despite the store’s only crime having two of the same three words in its name.
On Instagram, Avila finally deleted the post that kicked off all of the madness, but kept all of the posts about Jews he loves and a picture of a DNA Info story prominently displaying the fact that he was a coffee shop owner who “called Jews ‘greedy.'” He also put up an apology of sorts claiming his rant “came from what I believe to be a good place.” On the business side of things, Katarina Hybenova from Bushwick Daily and the Bushwick Entrepreneur’s Club told us over email his invite to be part of the club was rescinded. Giovinna Finotto, identified in an Instagram picture as Avila’s mentor, put up his own Facebook post distancing himself from Avila.