Italian Restaurant Forced to Take Down Controversial 'Black Olives Matter' Sign

At a time when Pokémon GO has completely overtaken news coverage and inundated our feeds, it is important to keep in mind that there are more serious issues at hand in America right now. One restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at least, boldly refused to let the national discourse on race and violence in America settle in the back of our minds.

"Black Olives Matter—Try Our Tapenade," read the marquee of Paisano's, an Italian eatery in the city's northeast heights, earlier this week. After putting up the sign, owner Rick Camuglia took a photo of it and posted it to the restaurant's Facebook page, which, it turns out, wasn't such a great idea.

Soon afterwards, a social media backlash began against the restaurant, and the sign was soon taken down, as was the Facebook post—a fact confirmed to MUNCHIES by one of the restaurant managers, although she declined to comment further.

Camuglia explained to local news station KRQE that he thought it was "a cute play on words to promote our special ahi tuna tonight."

"When you make a black olive tapenade, the olives matter," said Camuglia in an interview. "You can't make it with canned olives."

That may be true, but sometimes our dad puns are best kept to ourselves—especially when they put themselves in the crossfire of a very public, very racially charged controversy.