A Massachusetts restaurant owner received a negative review after he hung a small pride flag on the outside window of his establishment.
According to Boston25News, Italian-born Nino Barbalace moved to the U.S. with the dream of opening a restaurant and eventually made that dream a reality by opening Zia Gianna last year.
Sadly, a blemish has appeared on that realized dream in the form of a one-star Yelp review.
"I saw one star and I said, 'wow, what happened?'" said Barbalace.
It turns out, the review didn’t have anything to do with the restaurant itself, but the small flag that hung on its front window.
"It was personal," said Barbalace. "If you go to a place and you’re not happy with the food or the service, I understand that if I made a mistake because we all make mistakes. This is a restaurant, not politics."
But what did the review say?
"Well, that flag says all when you delve deeper and see the real customer base here,” started the review.
“It's clearly geared and catered only to those who rally behind the rainbow flag,” the reviewer later added.
Thankfully, this small moment of homophobia and hate was met with a stream of acceptance and love from repeat customers.
For instance, a costumer named Andrade visited the Zia Ginna this past Friday, August 17, and spoke with Boston 25 News to share words of love for the establishment.
"Luckily we live in the land of the free and people are entitled to their own opinion, but I do think it’s something to understand that we are an open community and there are people who come from all different countries and all different backgrounds and we should be welcoming of everyone," said Andrade.
Since then, the Yelp review has been taken down by its creator and the pride flag has remained up and out in the open.
Love won this day.
h/t: Boston 25 News
