Kuma's Corner Releases Statement, Donates to Catholic Charity After Communion Burger Uproar
By Jon Graef in Food on Oct 5, 2013 4:30PM
After the uproar over their October burger special, whose ingredients include an unconsecrated communion wafer garnish and a red wine reduction, Chicago restaurant Kuma's Corner released a statement on their Facebook page about the matter.
Bad news to those Catholics offended: the burger, named after Swedish group Ghost, is staying through the end of the month. The good news is that Kuma's Corner is donating $1,500 to the Catholic Charities of the Chicago Archdiocese as a show of good will.
Here's what the statement says:
We work very hard on coming up with creative combinations for our food just as a band would work very hard to be creative with their music and we think it shows in their regard so we found it appropriate that with them being on tour this month, and this month being October, we honor them in this way.That said, we appreciate the kind words of support from the vast majority of people who understand that we, in no way, created this as a commentary on religion or as an attack on anyone's personal beliefs. In the past we have done a number of burgers dealing with this same exact topic to very little fanfare. Never in the spirit of offending anyone, and always in mindset of praising a band for the work that they do.
After defending their actions on Free Speech grounds--which no one really disputed, but we suppose a refresher is always a good thing--and contextualizing their reasons for naming burgers after metal bands, Kuma's reiterates their commitment to the Ghost burger and declares their intention to give to charity.
So, to be clear, the Ghost burger will be available at Kuma’s Corner throughout the month of October. In addition, Ghost will be on tour in the United States all month and we encourage you to familiarize yourself with this amazing band by supporting them at one of their shows across the country.
In standing with our policy of supporting charity and Chicago at large, we have made a $1500 dollar donation to the Catholic Charities of the Chicago Archdiocese as we understand that they share our mentality of serving anyone in need from any walk of life.
Luke Tobias, director of Kuma's, told the Tribune, “The positive feedback has been extremely positive. The negative feedback, it’s unfortunate, but what are you going to do? We’ve been doing what we do for eight years. We haven’t stopped, we’re not going to stop.”
And there you have it. We just hope that the Catholics offended don't realize Kuma's has the Slayer, a burger named after the legendary thrash metal band behind time-honored family-friendly favorites such as God Hates Us All and Christ Illusion.
We'll just leave this here.