DEEN SCRAPPED
BUFFET AT HARRAH’S IN TUNICA BEING REBRANDED AFTER FALLOUT FROM STATEMENTS.
The Paula Deen Buffet at Harrah’s Tunica remained open on Wednesday, but the restaurant’s menu is set to change after casino owner Caesars Entertainment Corp. announced that it will not renew its contract with Paula Deen Enterprises and instead plans to rebrand the property.
No timetable for the renovation in the casino has been re- leased. Restaurant workers are employed by Caesars and will not be affected by the action.
The decision to drop Deen followed a backlash of negative publicity surrounding the recent release of statements Deen made during a deposition in which she acknowledged making racially insensitive remarks.
Deen’s comments were in response to questions related to a discrimination lawsuit filed last year by a former employee of Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House in Savannah, Ga., which is owned by Deen and her brother Earl Hiers.
The suit alleges that management allowed jokes and derogatory remarks about women and minorities to continue in the workplace and that pornography was displayed on company computers.
Responding to the revelations, last week The Food Network announced that it would not renew Deen’s contract. And on Monday, Smithfield Foods terminated Deen’s endorsement deal with the packaged meat company. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced on Wednesday that it was severing its ties with Deen. So did Caesars.
“While we appreciate Paula’s sincere apologies for statements she made in her past that she recently disclosed during a deposition given in response to a lawsuit, after thoughtful consideration of their impact, we have mutually decided that it is in the best interests of both parties to part ways at this time,” Caesars Entertainment representative Jan Jones Blackhurst said in a prepared statement.
Caesars operates Paula Deen
restaurants at four of its properties: Harrah’s casinos in Robinsonville, Miss., Joliet, Ill., and Cherokee, N.C., and at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana in Elizabeth, Ind.
The Harrah’s Tunica restaurant, which was designed to look like Deen’s home, opened amid much fanfare in 2008 as part of a $45 million renovation and name change at the property that was formerly known as Grand Casino Resort Tunica.
Just what will emerge at the Harrah’s Tunica property in place of the Deen buffet was unclear on Wednesday. What is known is that the buffet-style restaurant will be revamped in the coming months, but company officials did not provide a schedule for when the changes will be implemented or what they will be.
Company representatives also declined to specify when the restaurant would close to undergo the makeover. Seven other dining establishments are on the casino site.
When the Mississippi casino’s name change and the addition of the Paula Deen eatery were announced in late 2007, the Emmy-winning cook was riding a positive wave of public opinion and had been named by Forbes as one of the 100 most powerful celebrities.
At the time, casino officials predicted that Deen’s buffet would draw 900,000 diners Paula Deen attended the ribbon- cutting ceremony for her buffet at Harrah’s Casino in Tunica when it opened in 2008. Harrah’s owner, Caesars Entertainment, announced Wednesday it will not renew its contract with Deen. a year. The relationship with Harrah’s eventually expanded to include buffets at three other casinos, all of which will now lose the Deen banner.
Deen’s stunningly swift fall could perhaps have been prevented, or at least somewhat lessened by a more responsive crisis management team, said media specialist Amanda Mauck.
“Her people should have been prepared for this and devised a better game plan for when that first reporter called, because a story like this is not going to stay covered up,” said Mauck, president of the Memphis chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. “She should have immediately gone on camera with a heartfelt, sincere apology with a sympathetic interviewer. Instead, she’s added fuel to the fire.”
But as bad as it’s been and while it doesn’t appear that Deen’s situation will markedly improve anytime soon, redemption isn’t impossible, Mauck said.
In fact, other celebrities have managed to overcome reputation- damaging incidents and remake themselves in the court of public opinion.
“Paula Deen missed opportunities to take control of this situation, acknowledge her mistakes and properly make amends,” Mauck said.
“But she’s still got a huge fan base and it’s conceivable that she could come back. It probably won’t be soon, but just look at Martha Stewart. Ev- eryone thought her career was over, but she did her time, she worked to repair her image and she restored her image. It’ll be interesting to see if Paula does the same.”
The tarnished celebrity tried to make amends Wednesday when she appeared on national television, telling “Today” show host Matt Lauer she could only recall using the “n-word” once.
Looking distressed and her voice breaking, Deen said if there was someone in the audience who had never said something they wished they could take back, “please pick up that stone and throw it as hard at my head so it kills me. I want to meet you. I want to meet you.”
An uncomfortable Lauer tried to end the interview, but Deen repeated that anyone who hasn’t sinned should attack her. The Associated Press contributed to this story