Popular Larchmont Vegan Restaurant Owners Claim They're Getting Death Threats For Eating Meat

LARCHMONT (CBSLA.com) — About two dozen people demonstrated outside a popular vegan restaurant is Larchmont Village Friday night.

They were upset at the owner of Café Gratitude at 639 Larchmont Boulevard after someone began circulating a blog posted by Matthew Englehart 14 months ago.

He wrote that he and his wife own a farm, called Be Love, in Northern California, and they were eating meat from the cows they raised.

He also put up a picture of himself eating his first hamburger in 40 years. Now, Englehart has been getting a ton of hate mail.

"To suddenly make this move is a violation of what we thought they stood for," said Cory Mac, one of the protesters.

Café Gratitude declined to be interviewed but released a statement: "Be Love Farm is our home and it saddens us to think that the choices we are making in the privacy of that home would lead people to feel betrayed or to make threats on our life."

The demonstrators said they have not seen any proof that death threats have been made against the Engelharts.

A message on Yelp tells users that the restaurant has "recently made waves in the news" and comments "may be removed as part of its cleanup process."

Jason Stewart thinks: "It's a bit much. If you don't want to come, just don't come."

Most of the customers there said they respect the demonstrators for voicing their opinions. But some vegetarians said the Engelharts have a right to consume the livestock on their farm.

"If it's like meat that they treat animals that they raise ethically and take care of  them and they eat the food and they use the meat, I think that's OK," Greg Hunt said.