St. Catharines pizzeria targeted by protesters’ wrath buoyed by community support

The way Ted Fragiskos sees it, the way folks in St. Catharines rallied to step up and help his pizzeria that was the target of vicious messages and negative reviews on the weekend is proof that people in the Garden City take care of their own.

Fragiskos, who runs Rollin' Pizza at a strip mall on Lake Street, along with his wife Jennifer, was forced to close the pizzeria for several hours on Saturday after hundreds of anti-lockdown people filled the strip mall parking lot, defying the new provincial stay-at-home order.

Fragiskos said numerous people from the rally, almost all not wearing masks and crowding tightly together, entered his pizzeria.

They were coming in in groups, without masks and using the bathrooms and blocking doorways," he said.

Some of the people entering the pizzeria became combative over the need for masks, a reflection of some of the conspiracy theory beliefs among at least some: one person at the rally held a sign suggesting physical distancing isn't based on science and saying keeping people six feet apart is a made-up number to better track and trace us."

To protect his staff, Fragiskos was forced to close his doors for several hours.

That didn't sit well with some of the protesters, who bombarded the pizzeria with nasty emails and messages, and posted poor reviews online as payback.

We had people wishing we'd close forever, calling us sheep and mindless," said Fragiskos. We got some pretty nasty ones."

He said it was ironic that the goal of the rally was supposed to be showing support for small businesses hurting under shifting rules and restrictions during the pandemic, but it forced a number of those same small businesses in the strip mall to close.

It wasn't fair for the businesses," he said. This was supposed to be about helping small business, but it really hurt small business."

But later in the day, Fragiskos said people hearing of the backlash rallied to support the business as orders poured in and people took to social media to post glowing comments about the business and its staff.

I was overwhelmed by the positive aspects that came from the negativity," he said. It really helps when there's a supportive web of people at the end of the day.

Not even thousands of people protesting can take that away," he said. The amount of customers who came to support us was amazing."

On their Instagram page, the owners of the pizzeria posted that the support from the community was huge for them. We are so thankful to all of the people who have sent us (messages) of love today."

Fragiskos said he's a firm believer in freedom of speech, but not when it harms others trying to make ends meet and keep people employed.

I understand the frustration of businesses, and it sucks when you're not considered essential," he said. But it's a worldwide pandemic.

I'm just grateful that there was no physical damage and no one got hurt."

St. Catharines city Coun. Karrie Porter tweeted her pride in how the community rallied to support the pizzeria after hearing of the backlash from protesters.

St. Catharines bucked up and overwhelmed Rollin Pizza with overwhelmingly +++ reviews," she tweeted. This town has A+ (people)."