I’m not entirely sure what conservatives mean when they say “woke,” but they’re against everything (books, science, public health, etc.), so I guess “everything” works as a rough translation of “woke.”
They don’t like Mexican immigrants in particular, so they probably were never going to like Carmen Quiroga’s breakfast cafe in Coventry, Connecticut, even if she had named it “Awake” instead of “Woke.”
When Quiroga and her husband came to Connecticut in 2005 (presumably legally), speaking only Spanish, they worked as cooks. Ten years later, by 2015, they’d done well enough to open their own pizza and Italian restaurant; but the long hours kept her from spending time with their young son.
So she sold that restaurant last year, renovated a building in Coventry, and opened a breakfast cafe there on January 19, 2023. Her intent was the shorter hours would allow her more family time. She adopted as a business motto, “You woke up and made the right choice,” and her logo featured a fried egg (see photo below).
There was nothing political about it. All were welcome. This was just a businesswoman trying to make a living. But conservatives in the town went apeshit over the name “Woke Cafe.”
Quiroga panicked and worried she was “going to lose everything.” But she misjudged the town residents. On opening day, there was an hour-long wait to get in. There was so much business her cafe ran out of ingredients in no time. Now, her stress comes from managing the crowds. (See story here).
This story illustrates the jackassery of the far right. But it also shows something else: The residents of Coventry are overwhelmingly against rightwing hate. This doesn’t surprise me. Most Americans are decent people. The “anti-woke” crowd makes a lot of noise, but at the end of the day, they’re not just a disreputable and ignorant minority but a rather small one, too. And that reality gives this story its heartwarming ending.
