A Texas pizzeria is facing criticism for displaying a gory-looking pizza named after the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
Capital Pizza restaurant in Lubbock, a city in northwest Texas, introduced a store display featuring a pizza called the “Jeffrey Dahmer Special”.
The exhibit that some consider problematic features a prop pizza crust covered in fake blood, an eyeball, a dismembered finger and ramen noodles representing intestines.
Restaurant workers say the display was created to celebrate “spooky season”, with the Halloween holiday a week away. The display was also inspired by the popularity of the controversial Netflix series on Dahmer, who murdered and sometimes cannibalized 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991 before he was convicted and beaten to death in prison.
“It being spooky season and the popularity of the Netflix series, one of our waitresses came up with the idea and made the pizza and just put it up as a fun prop for Halloween,” Capital Pizza manager Kiefer Slusher-Davidson told Everything Lubbock, a local news affiliate.
But the pizza display received mixed feedback on social media, with some users criticizing the display as disrespectful to Dahmer’s victims.
A Texas pizzeria is serving a 'Dahmer Special' ... and people are PISSED. https://t.co/y6qsW5kXGW pic.twitter.com/266DPhD1su
— TMZ (@TMZ) October 23, 2022
“That is sick. There is nothing funny about this pizza and the sick things Jeffrey Dahmer did to people,” wrote one user on Twitter.
“Disgusting,” another wrote.
The restaurant has also acknowledged that it has received complaints over the display, but the establishment has said that other customers don’t mind the gruesome pizza prop.
“Like I said, it’s a fun prop, I suppose [it] will become either famous or infamous,” Slusher-Davidson said to the local television station KAMC, referring to the potential for backlash.
The Capital Pizza display is inedible and not available for sale, and will be moved into storage once Halloween is over, according to the pizzeria.
The restaurant could not be immediately reached for comment about the exhibit.
The Netflix series about Dahmer’s killing spree has faced criticism of its own – the families of Dahmer’s victims say Netflix and the show’s creators did not consult with them about how their loved ones would be depicted.
