There has been a firestorm of debate in the Oxford community this week after a cocktail menu at Saint Leo Restaurant, originally intended as a celebration of Black History Month, received widespread backlash on social media.
Designed by Saint Leo’s head bartender, Joseph Stinchcomb, the specialty drinks were available for less than two weeks before the restaurant stopped serving them entirely.
The menu, which featured drinks with names like “Blood on the Leaves” and “(I’m Not Your) Negroni,” almost immediately sparked a debate as to whether the names were merely a form of artistic expression or a blatant act of disrespect toward African-American culture and history.
On Feb. 11, Saint Leo released an official statement and apology via its Facebook page regarding the menu, stating that it was not intended to “demean, trivialize, upset or offend.”
Stinchcomb wrote in the statement that the menu he had spent “a better part of a year” researching was not meant to offend but, rather, to create a dialogue about the cultural and historical significance behind the cocktails.
However, some Saint Leo customers did not appreciate what they believed to be references to acts of violence toward the black community. For example, “Blood on the Leaves” is an allusion to ‘Strange Fruit,’ a song originally recorded in 1939 by Billie Holiday, whose lyrics in the song directly reference the topic of lynching.
“It was intended to start a conversation,” Stinchcomb said in the statement. “… Bartending has a deep and rich history that dates back hundreds of years and used thousands of black bartenders. I wanted to honor their hard work and sacrifice by making sure they are not forgotten.”
One Oxford resident, Regina Pitts, commented that she believed more care could have been taken in the presentation of the new drink selections.
“If you’re going to market ‘something new’, you better warn people first or at the very least have a disclaimer,” Pitts responded on Saint Leo’s Facebook post. “I’m all for history lessons, but tell me first that there’s a lesson to be learned, or like many others, I’ll be forced to jump to conclusions.”
Many other Oxford citizens, such as Colleen Thorndike, were in agreement.
“The intentions here seem good, but the impact and the execution of it faltered,” Thorndike said in another Facebook reply. “I can’t imagine ordering a drink using a phrase from a song about lynching, and I can’t understand why anyone would think that was a suitable name for a drink. Is it important to acknowledge and discuss the horrors of lynching? Of course. Is it appropriate for a cocktail menu? I don’t think so.”
Stinchcomb responded to the critics by backing up his creation of the menu and writing that he did, in fact, understand the cultural significance of the names and events.
“The naming of these beverages was never intended to be perverse or to insensitively trivialize the black experience past, present, or future,” Stinchcomb continued in his Facebook statement. “I believe the only way that we can grow and move past this is by talking about our shared past and dealing with the emotions that come along with our past.”
A closed forum, led by Joseph Stinchcomb, was held Monday night for members of the community to express their concerns and gain insight into the design of the cocktail menu.
Southern Foodways Alliance Project Coordinator Afton Thomas argued that though she knows it may be hard to understand the intentions of the menu without proper context or explanation from Stinchcomb, she still believes it was made to be purely artistic and with the utmost respect for members of the black community.
“I admire this young man, who is sadly, but a true statement, in a rare position — a black bar manager on the Square, who thought enough of his history and platform to create this menu,” Thomas said. “He didn’t slap a provocative name on a rum and coke; he is well-studied and serious about his craft. That should be acknowledged.”
Emily Blount, the owner of Saint Leo, expressed her remorse in handling the situation in a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page and said she realized how it may easily have been taken out of context.
“I must offer that I also fully recognize my own shortsightedness as the restaurant owner in the way this important information was initially presented,” Blount wrote. “The failure was ours in not providing the full context and intent with which this menu was created.”
Oxford resident Anne Scott Barret said she first came across the menu in early February after seeing it posted on St. Leo’s Facebook page.
“I’m in awe at how this one person, this one restaurant, managed to create dialogue. … That really made our community think about the black experience and how we relate and how we sometimes don’t relate. It’s powerful stuff,” Barrett said.
She said the menu lacked the necessary context for the topics it dealt with.
“I think the lesson we learned from the conversations I’ve read from members of the restaurant community, other artists and members of both the black and white communities of Oxford is that context really does matter when presenting anything that could be potentially hurtful or confusing to our friends and neighbors,” Barrett said.
