A Restaurant's 9/11-Themed Menu Sparked Fury And Disbelief

Concept restaurants and bars are nothing new. Manhattan's Lower East Side Beauty Bar was built in a 1950s hair parlor, and when it became a dive bar, the owners kept the decor. Chocolatier Max Brenner runs a self-titled restaurant in Midtown totally inspired by chocolate. Say No Mo in Ukraine is both a cocktail bar and a gender-neutral nail salon. Even Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville is a themed restaurant.

Sounds fun, right? Well, not always. Concept restaurants can offer a fun, fresh twist on the dining-out experience but, in the case of one Virginia country club, they can also totally miss the mark. Earlier this week, The Clubhouse at Aquia Harbor in Stafford, Virginia released its new lineup of offerings for "Patriot Day 2022," via People – and it was a 9/11-themed menu. (Yes, really.) Mike Sington, Senior Executive at NBCUniversal, shared an image of the menu on Twitter, and it's rough. Here's what folks had to say about it.

According to Mike Sington's tweet, The Clubhouse's 9/11-themed menu offered appetizers like the "First Responder Flatbread" and the "Flight 93 Redirect" crab dip. For dessert, guests could have their choice of chocolate silk "Pentagon Pie" or sip a "Remember-tini." (We're all about unusual cocktails here, but come on.) Dessert aside, it's the main course that takes the cake: The country club offered a bowl of "2977 Chowder," in reference to the number of people who lost their lives in the tragedy. Hope you're hungry — if so, luckily The Clubhouse offered the "Never Forget Sampler," so you can try it all. (Yikes.)

In 2018, satirical news site The Onion published a fake 9/11-themed Subway advertisement that promised, "You will 'Never Forget' this deal" on "Subtember 11." Even then, folks responded pretty negatively to the joke, calling it in "poor taste" and even asking "what is wrong with you?" on Twitter. Now, though, four years have passed, and there are 9/11-themed menus out there happening for real. Or at least, there was. The Clubhouse has since taken the menu down and issued a public apology. On Tuesday, Manager George White wrote a Facebook post, saying, "I apologize for those I offended with the 9/11 seafood Sunday post... We will have a new theme tomorrow" (via ABC News). Per Insider, it has since been replaced with a football-themed menu instead.