There are a lot of different ways to enjoy steak. You can eat it with Hong Kong’s elite in an underground fight club, while getting day drunk and not watching tennis at Wimbledon, or just hunt it yourself in the Australian Outback.
But one surefire way to not appreciate dead cow meat is to do it while being yelled at by militant vegans.
Videos by VICE
This was the fate of numerous Toronto diners at The Keg’s opulent flagship Keg Mansion steakhouse, where staff and customers were flanked by nearly two dozen animal rights activists demanding an end to humanity’s carnivorous cruelty towards animals. Which is kind of like going to a brothel to preach abstinence.
In a video uploaded by the group to a YouTube account called Vegan Gains, a protester grills (pun intended) the Keg Mansion hostess about why there is no dog meat on the menu.
“I’m just wondering, I don’t see any dog meat here—that’s the latest thing. I thought this was a meat restaurant, but I don’t see any dog meat here,” the unnamed protester asks the front desk, in an apparent attempt at irony. “I don’t understand it. Are you ever going to have dog meat here. Why not? I wanna know!”
Dissatisfied with the young woman’s response, the protester makes her way to the dining room with a mini-army of like-minded activists to preach the evils of meat and to parades signs declaring, “It’s not food. It’s violence. This parade is followed by some of the laziest and most off-rhythm chanting ever recorded, with rallying calls of “Animals do not want to die!” and “It’s not just food! It’s violence!”
According to a Facebook post by the animal rights group in question, the Keg Mansion coup was theater designed for online visibility. “The whole action is designed theatre to cause one to wake up for a moment and recognize that what once was a life, no different than your dog, sits on your plate. Many… even most… will go back to ignoring that fact. Some however, will talk. And that’s where it begins.”
Not surprisingly, the protest seems to have impacted only those who already believe that eating meat is an oppressive practice. According to Direct Action Everywhere, “following yesterday’s action at the Keg Mansion, a vegan left her table (of omnivores) and ran out after us into the parking lot to say thank you and give hugs.”
Direct Action Everywhere describes itself as a “nonviolent protest that disrupts the places that normalize violence against animals, and calls for animal liberation.”
Doug Smith is Chief Operating Officer at The Keg and he says that targeting Toronto’s Keg Mansion location would be a no-brainer for an animal-rights group seeking visibility. “We’re a very busy restaurant. We’re the leading steakhouse chain in Canada. This was obviously a very visible location for their protests.”
Smith also told MUNCHIES that the intention was clearly to make an impact on diners. “This group of protesters entered the restaurant and wanted to voice their opinion on animal cruelty. They were trying to disrupt our guests and operations. I’m sure it was a little uncomfortable for our guests who were dining out, but I think that our staff and managers handled the situation very well.”
Direct Action Everywhere do not deny the manipulation. “With video and social media, the power and reach of this form of expression is greater than ever,” they wrote on Facebook. And with over 200,000 views on YouTube, the protesters definitely succeeded in getting attention, as much for their cause as for their terrible manners.
