When Trever Benedict, co-owner of The Red Barn in Augusta, came in to work Wednesday, the first thing he did was place a new roadside sign in front of his business. He switches the sign to display a new uplifting message every couple of weeks, he said, and this change was overdue.
This sign, reading “Sorry to spoil the ending for you, but everything is gonna end up okay,” was especially meaningful to Benedict because his dad has suffered two strokes this year as his mother’s health also declines. He thought of them as he put it up, he added, thinking nothing else was out of the ordinary.
But when he posted a picture of the sign on Facebook, it was met with hundreds of angry comments, direct messages and later some phone calls from people who thought he was celebrating the overwhelming victory of Democrats in Maine and across the country in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Some people said they would boycott The Red Barn, according to Benedict.
“Naturally it was taken entirely out of context, and it basically created this uproar that we’re in the midst of now,” Benedict said Saturday morning. “For it to come back as this backlash, name-calling from the community, it’s really disheartening, it’s infuriating, and it’s ridiculous, frankly.”
Benedict posted an update on Facebook Thursday that clarified the intent behind the sign, but turned the comments off to avoid negativity. He said people continued to message him directly.
The Red Barn has stirred some controversy in the past under previous owner Laura Benedict, Trever Benedict’s aunt. Laura lashed out at Augusta city officials in 2017 after mistakenly believing that she had been fined for not having a mass gathering permit for a fundraising event, and she publicly removed an employee from the restaurant’s work schedule after he made racists remarks on Instagram.
Trever Benedict said there has never been anything political about the signs the restaurant posts, and that people sometimes stop in just to thank them for how the message improved their day.
“I hope that people can just strive to see the good and not scrutinize everything to the point where they look so hard to find the negative in everything,” Benedict said. “We have never been more divided than we are right now, and this whole example of this sign is exhibit A.”
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Madeleine Kaptein can be reached at mkaptein@metln.org