Animal Activist Disrupts SF Lunch Service With Tearful Elegy to a Chicken

Diners at Bluestem Brasserie had their lunches interrupted on Saturday by an animal activist, who beseeched them to listen to a tearful, two-minute-long speech about her "little girl, who was abused for most of her life." As the Chron reports, said girl is actually a chicken named Snow, whom activist Kelly Atlas says she "rescued" from a farm where she was scheduled to become dinner. "She was scared every single moment, and someone was going to murder her."

"I can see you smiling, I can see you laughing, but to her, this is not funny!" Atlas told Bluestem's clientele. "They deserved their lives, and right now, their eggs and their milk and their bodies are on plates inside this restaurant. That is so unfair to them!" At the conclusion of her speech, Atlas was joined by around a dozen other animal activists, who held up signs and chanted, "It's not food, it's violence!" before leaving the restaurant. Bluestem refused to comment to the Chron on the protest, but a manager admitted it was "very bad."

Atlas and her cohorts are members of Direct Action Everywhere, an Oakland-based "creative nonviolent protest" organization that aims to "tell the animals' story." They've participated in multiple similar protests at fast-food outlets like Chipotle, but this is the first video they've posted that directly takes aim at an independently owned restaurant.