A Los Angeles prison-themed bar has riled up the net for seemingly making slight of the prison industrial complex.
The bar called Prizon Bar was featured in a localish ABC News segment because of its "offbeat" service and menu. In the featurette posted on Twitter, a customer is shown being handcuffed by one of the hosts after getting a mugshot taken.
Others who venture to the bar can also take photos and get their mugshots. As shown in the featurette video, a host will sit you down at a table situated in a prison cell behind bars. Food will be served on metal prison-like trays and customers will be handed prison-themed utensils.
Most of the food served is fashioned after popular Korean dishes like Korean fried chicken. A customer can also order cold Korean beverages to wash down their prison slop.
there's a bar that's like a prison and they think that's a good thing. #highnoon
pic.twitter.com/Epx1Ptzov1— bomani (@bomani_jones) May 27, 2019
YOU'RE UNDER ARREST: Welcome to a prison-themed bar in #LosAngeles! #PrizonBar | More My Go-To: https://t.co/gTHXFql469
pic.twitter.com/SkRm4lJuMF— Localish (@localish) May 24, 2019
In the days since it was published, the video has been criticized for turning the rampant incarceration of mostly Black and brown people into an amusement park. Unsurprisingly, Twitter users hammered the bar for its smugness toward the issue.
I honestly hope and pray this business fails MISERABLY.
— Beautifully Black (@CeeReeSpeaks) May 26, 2019
— BIGNOAH ???????????? (@BIGNOAH256) May 26, 2019
Doin' my part pic.twitter.com/MmxZ8TwerX
— Bradford William Davis (@_beewilly) May 27, 2019
whats….whats not clicking i- pic.twitter.com/fGkTdw8hUb
— Malique Z. (@faimalique) May 26, 2019
this should not be glorified.
— taiya j (@ohsoootay) May 26, 2019
I genuinely don’t understand how completely removed from reality they are to make a restaurant theme out of a domestic humanitarian crisis. pic.twitter.com/CJVLoEMEqv
— conscious manifestation of light (@D4WN_Michelle) May 26, 2019
According to Eater L.A., the Prizon Bar opened in August of 2017 to decent fanfare. The profile on the bar said the bar divides its menu into four categories “Eatalian,” fries, entree, and soup.
Blavity reached out to the bar for a comment on the recent backlash. As of yet, the bar has not responded.
Prizon Bar is not the first prison-theme bar/restaurant in the area. In 1925, the Jail Café was a popular restaurant located on El Cid on Sunset. Waitresses were made to dress as convicts to commit to the theme at Jail Café.
