Queens Restaurant Blasted On Yelp After Posting Pro-Trump Groping Comment [Update]

A Greek restaurant in Queens is under fire after the owner posted pro-Donald Trump comments online — including a selfie with his ballot captioned "from tomorrow, we grab them by there pussy" [sic]. Gothamist dug into the past social media presence of Georgios Aspiotis, owner of Forest Hills restaurant Corfu Grill, in a now removed story. He’d posted the offending selfie and was condemned by locals online. Aspiotis apologized and deleted it, but screenshots of now-deleted posts show that he had an extensive history of posting vulgar comments to social media, a find from the original Gothamist story that incited angry reviews to Corfu Grill’s Yelp page. (Many of the reviews were eventually deleted based on Yelp’s policy of removing posts based on internet outrage; a spokesperson at Yelp confirmed that Corfu Grill’s page has undergone a "cleanup.")

Corfu Grill has been open for a decade at 70-17 Austin Street, a main drag in the neighborhood. A post on the restaurant’s Facebook page explained that the selfie was "a joke" and that "I didn’t mean to offend any body," according to a screenshot of a now-deleted post. Aspiotis says his original post was on his private Facebook page and "a joke between me and my friends." "It’s something that the president says," he said in response."I’m a guy who likes to joke like that sometimes."

Still, the restaurateur has posted unsavory images to the restaurant’s official Instagram in the past, such as an image of him doing the hand symbol for cunnilingus, screenshots show. (The posts have since been deleted.) He also once said in response to a negative Yelp review "next time stare on my huge c--k" [sic], according to a screenshot of a post on the site.

Even before the Trump quote, people were not thrilled about his language: "I was interested in trying this restaurant until I saw the comment ‘Next time stare on my huge c--k’ by the owner in response to someone else’s one star review," one Yelper wrote. "What happened professionalism? Or even basic courtesy? ...In case you are unaware, attacking reviewers is not going to do any favors and it has deterred at least one diner."

With additional reporting by Nathan Tempey

Update (February 26, 2018): Following Gothamist's retraction of content that was heavily cited above, this post has been updated to include only information that came from Eater's reporting.