Note: we are republishing this story, which originally made the news in April 2019.

A restaurant called Gross’ burgers located in Danville is now receiving thousands of negative comments on social media due to a bumper sticker in the restaurant that has been deemed racist.

The bumper sticker went viral after a customer shared a picture of the restaurant saying it was “absolutely disgusting.” The restaurant owner has since refused to remove the controversial bumper sticker.The sticker displays the message, “If you can’t read this, thank a Marine,” and has additional text in Arabic that says “Allahu akbar.”

According to the owner, Brad Gross, the sticker is one of his “patriotic items” that has been part of his restaurant for more than 10 years. In fact, he told Fox News that he received it from a Marine during his service in Iraq.

However, the customer who shared the picture of the restaurant is still disgusted about it. Sam Schnelle’s post had more than 800 shares on Facebook with the caption “f— Grossburgers. Absolutely disgusting.” Schnelle later said that she had called the restaurant so they could remove the sticker, but she didn’t receive a positive response:

“They then handed the phone to the manager who said, we are most certainly not taking it down. YOU PEOPLE are too sensitive nowadays. And then proceeded to argue with whatever recommendations/points I made and then hung up on me,” she said, “Nice.”

Many tweets and Facebook posts have been taken down since the original picture was posted. Gross was a Marine himself and he currently owns a burger restaurant that employs his fellow Marines. People in his community have supported him and defended him from the complaints. “I can’t thank them enough,” he added. Moreover, he claims that he has a long line of military service that should be respected and appreciated. He has made it clear that he isn’t planning to remove the sticker.
However, people have made negative comments about the restaurant owner’s reaction. For instance, one user asked on Schnelle’s Facebook post “Why are all these Americans cheering for ignorance? The ability to speak more than one language should be applauded. Pathetic.”
Rachel Parker posted on twitter, “Hey Danville people, don’t eat at Grossburgers! Don’t support racism!”
There have also been sarcastic comments such as “Ya know. I’m not about racism at all, but all this talk about gross burgers really has me craving their fries.”