A barbecue restaurant in Red Bank canceled an order for the Back the Police Rally on Saturday after getting threats.
A manager of Shuford's Smokehouse said one of the threats was to burn the business down.
After that, Shuford's opted not to send the food to the rally near police headquarters on Amnicola Highway.
Management said the food was not to have been donated, but was just another food order.
Madison Davis, one of the owners, said, "A man came in on Tuesday and placed a $1,000 order for food. To us, it was just another order for a small business that is trying to make it in this COVID environment. To us, it had nothing to do with backing the police or with racism. It was just another order."
She said the Shuford's Facebook page began getting "hateful posts and awful reviews" so our ranking went down from a 4.8 to a 4 in an hour." The Facebook page was then taken down.
Ms. Davis said it came after Cameron "C-Grimey" Williams, one of the leaders of the Chattanooga protests, put on a post on his Facebook page accusing Shuford's of being racist.
She said, "To me it's just not right for a protest group that is trying to change things for the better to post all these vile things and to set out to ruin a small business."
Ms. Davis said the order was canceled after a male caller on Thursday made a threat to burn down the old Shuford's location on Signal Mountain Road, where the meat is still smoked.
She said at that point it was decided to cancel the $1,000 order. "To us it was not worth the risk of putting our business and the lives of our employees on the line."
The incident has been reported to the police.