Sidestepping controversial issues can protect your brandSidestepping controversial issues can protect your brand

Gone are the days when restaurants were properly categorized as private businesses, free to create an atmosphere conducive to return visits by their customers. Increasingly, restaurants are viewed as the modern-day public square, where activist groups from anti-corporate labor groups to pro-Second Amendment gun owners stage their political theater in front of the local townspeople.

The one thing these groups have in common is their recognition that the most valuable thing owned by a restaurant is not its new deep-freeze cooler or state-of-the-art oven, but its brand. Groups with an agenda are putting brand equity in their crosshairs to achieve their goals.

Most restaurant owners and operators understand it is unwise to take sides on conten...