Table of Contents
This article is published through a content partnership with Cam Richtik. Visit his substack at https://substack.com/@camrichtik
Portland’s Clarklewis restaurant co-owner Joe Rogers has donated $1,788.29 to the Southern Poverty Law Center following a private brunch that drew protests over attendees displaying Nazi imagery. The restaurant’s owners also issued a statement rejecting white nationalism, denying they knew the group’s affiliation when accepting the booking and apologizing to employees.
The donation matches the net-sales figure recorded for the Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026, brunch after comped charges were deducted. An acknowledgment supplied by Rogers thanks Clarklewis for its $1,788.29 gift. Rogers is also billing the booking holder for unpaid checks and considering options to pursue damages under the event contract.
In their statement, Rogers and co-owner Bruce Carey condemned white nationalism, racism and antisemitism and said the restaurant was reviewing how it accepts private bookings and responds to dangerous situations. They distinguished people opposing white nationalism from those who damaged the restaurant.
A separate staff message attributed to Carey acknowledged employees’ fear and promised better identification of problematic bookings and emergency planning.
The booking and the gathering
The brunch reservation was for noon. A contract supplied by Rogers estimated 55 or more guests and set a $1,000 food-and-beverage minimum, with charges based on consumption. Rogers said the event had been described to him as “The Oregon Group” and estimated that about 40 people attended. The contract names an individual booking holder rather than an organization. It does not identify the gathering’s political affiliations. It explicitly stipulates that final payment is due upon completion of the event and includes a clause stating that the “client agrees to be responsible for any damage to the premises.”
A saved Facebook post attributed to Ashanti Hall identified Clarklewis as the location of a brunch associated with a gathering the poster described as white nationalist. Photographs in the post show a program labeled “2026 Oregon Event,” listing talks by Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor.
Unconfirmed reports circulating about the weekend say people associated with the extremist gathering were removed from or denied service at multiple establishments. Those accounts have not been independently verified, including whether the same attendees or organizers were involved at each location.
Speculation surrounding the incident includes the possibility that extremists anticipated a protest response and sought to exploit it to harm queer-owned businesses or create chaos in Portland. Rogers separately said in messages that he believed Clarklewis had been targeted and framed as supportive of racism. The available evidence does not currently establish that attendees planned the confrontation, coordinated with anyone who damaged the restaurant or deliberately chose the venue for that purpose.
Images supplied for this story show an attendee wearing an “American Nationalist” shirt. Another shirt shown in photographs and video refers to Horst Wessel, a Nazi SA member celebrated in Nazi propaganda.
Warnings and the response
An anonymous source said they went to the restaurant after seeing an alert, photographed attendees and contacted others after examining the imagery. The source said their subsequent objection concerned staff’s response to the information, rather than a belief that the restaurant had knowingly booked the group.
According to the source, a staff member responded to concerns about white supremacists by citing the restaurant’s gay ownership and its policy against religious discrimination. The source also described a threat to call police for trespassing. Those exchanges have not been independently corroborated.
A screenshot supplied by Rogers records a message at 1:50 p.m. asking whether a white-supremacist convention was still happening at the restaurant. A response at 2:03 p.m. denied prior awareness and described the information as news.
At 2:06 p.m., bartender Troy messaged that he would never work for the group again, meaning that he would refuse to serve the group in the future, and Rogers backed that stand when he learned of the affiliation. Staff said during interviews on Oct. 6 that they did not recognize the guests’ identities before they departed.
In a follow-up interview, Rogers said the restaurant used an AI telephone answering service that generated messages for him to review. Staff could not directly answer that telephone, he said, and he did not open every generated message. Text messaging was offered as a route to a live person.
Rogers said he believed a reported warning call had been made but had not fielded it. He described the text around 2 p.m. as the first warning he actually read. Claims that the restaurant had been warned before Sunday have not been independently established.
During an interview inside the restaurant, Rogers and another representative cited the business’s queer ownership, employees and history of hosting drag events while denying that they would knowingly support the ideology attributed to the gathering.
Asked about the restaurant’s responsibility, Rogers said: “Why make it about us? Somebody decided to dine at our restaurant.”
The accounts leave unresolved what information reached staff while the guests were present and whether anyone with authority considered stopping service. Asked about preventing a repeat, Rogers agreed changes were needed but did not describe a completed screening or urgent-message procedure.
Damage and the unpaid checks
A restaurant window was broken during the events surrounding the gathering. Who caused the damage, when it occurred and whether the person responsible participated in the earlier demonstration have not been established.
Rogers said the restaurant is assessing its legal options and consulting counsel about a potential lawsuit against the booking holder to recover damages. He said expenses being calculated include window replacement, security, extra labor and business disruption.
“Damage being calculated and referred to counsel for lawsuit if advised it is possible to charge contract holder for damage created by protest,” Rogers said. Whether the booking holder can be held liable for those costs remains a question for counsel.
The restaurant’s sales report lists $2,336.29 in gross sales and $548 in comped charges, leaving the $1,788.29 that Rogers donated. Rogers clarified that $385.50 in comps represented event walkouts. The remaining $162.50 reflected routine operational adjustments, including staff shift meals, order errors and kitchen waste, he said.
Rogers itemized $385.50 in unpaid food and beverages across seven comped checks, resolving an initial $20 discrepancy after locating a missing receipt. The contractual 23% event service charge rounds to $88.67, bringing the calculated total to $474.17. The invoice issued to the booking holder lists those components but demands $474.65, a separate 48-cent discrepancy.
Rogers said 100% of any funds recovered from the walkout invoice would also be donated to the SPLC. The restaurant plans to compensate service staff for lost tips and wages separately out of pocket, he said. Some customers who paid left optional tips in addition to the service charge, he clarified.
The invoice seeks payment for unpaid tabs. Broader legal action for property damage and operational disruption remains under review with counsel. No formal lawsuit has yet been filed.
What comes next: Analysis
Whatever their intentions, the extremists came away with advantages: some attendees received meals they did not pay for, the gathering received publicity, and the conflict offered an opportunity to claim they had “owned the libs” in Portland.
The people left dealing with the damage, fear and fractured relationships were restaurant workers and members of the surrounding community. The donation directs the money collected toward opposition to extremism, but it cannot by itself repair those relationships.
There is an opportunity here for education and camaraderie: helping businesses recognize extremist imagery, giving workers clear ways to act when concerns are raised, and bringing owners, staff and demonstrators into a shared response to hate. If the lasting result is that people who oppose Nazism turn against one another while extremists collect free food, attention and a story of chaos in Portland, the extremists are the only ones walking away with a win. The choice now is to turn that outcome into education and solidarity. Otherwise, the Nazis win.
Related: Statement from Clarklewis on Facebook
