Restaurant Named "Pablo's Escoburgers" Serves Lines of Fake Cocaine With Their Food, And People Aren't Happy
They say nothing goes better with a burger than a Coke, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
A pop-up burger restaurant in Australia has issued a response after many on social media took offense to its jokey name and hamburger offerings.
Pablo’s Escoburgers, named after infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, received backlash over its cheeky name and “patron burger” — which features a line of white powder, garlic flour, on top of the bun with a rolled up, fake $100 note stuck on top.
“People are lining up for a taste,” a caption read, nodding to Escobar’s sordid history of running cocaine in the 1980s.
After the backlash, Escoburgers co-owner Vaughn Marks issued a statement on the restaurant’s official Facebook page saying they are “not here to offend,” and that “lots of Colombians enjoy the burgers.”
“We are very proud of our burgers but we do also understand that Pablo Escobar was a horrible man who destroyed the lives of thousands of Colombians,” the statement read.
“We do not condone, idolize or promote Pablo Emilio Escobar or his actions in anyway. We are however Australian and know how to have a laugh about a good play on words.
“Its just a name of a pop-up burger bar not really a theme. Hard not to offend someone in 2019.”
The restaurant said it has no plans to change the controversial name.
Burgers and Coke. Hilarious!! If anyone thinks naming your restaurant “Pablo’s Escoburgers” and serving meals with a line of garlic flour and a fake $100 bill is anything other than genius marketing, then you are a big fat crybaby and I hope you have to work outside in the cold today. I saw people mad online saying that this burger joint is “glorifying drug use”. Sheeesh. Lighten up a little bit. Smoke a joint and chill out. Or just don’t go there!!
The only critique that I find fair on this entire ploy is that while Pablo’s Escoburgers certainly makes sense, Pablo Esco-Bar is an incredible name for a regular bar. The owners really missed the boat on this one. With that, instead of serving garlic flour on burgers to simulate cocaine, they could actually just serve real cocaine in the bathrooms. With the standard drinking establishment markup, too. They’d be rolling in the money. Sort of like their namesake.
And to the people complaining that associating Pablo Escobar with anything is insensitive seeing as he orchestrated the murders of thousands of people and paid out rewards for killing police officers, chill out. I saw some people saying that using Hitler would be the same type of thing, but no one would think it was funny. Ummm, no shit? There’s a certain mystique about being a Colombian drug lord that brought in over $70 million per day during the height of his power. There’s nothing cool about being a German Nazi leader that killed women and children for their race and religion. Grow up. It’s not the same at all. Escobar literally lost millions of dollars per year from rats gnawing on his money that was just sitting around. And he didn’t give a shit. That’s cool. That’s why the idea of staying on his private island was so extravagant for Fyre Festival attendees. Too bad that didn’t work out.
What a shame. Anyways, I love the idea of the restaurant. I need a burger review from Glenny. I bet he gives it an 8-ball score.