Cafe ushers in Black History Month with insensitive, shooting-themed latte called 'the Tupac'
As you scroll through the Instagram feed for Run and Gun Coffee, a new cafe/event space located in Toronto’s Dundas West neighborhood, you quickly realize there’s an interesting theme: the murders of high-profile black rappers like Biggie and Tupac, which is certainly an aesthetic.
According to the Instagram account, apparently as of last week the cafe’s customers were greeted with a chalk sign at the entrance depicting Biggie’s iconic likeness asking them whether they knew who “double shot” them. For those unfamiliar with how Biggie died, he was shot four times, with one of the bullets fatally piercing his lung, heart, liver, and colon.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPdejCyBeI2/?taken-by=runandguncoffee
A recently published review of the shop from blogTo details Run And Gun’s offerings: an assortment of coffees, pastries, and a secret menu featuring the “Tupac,” dosed with five heavy pours of milk meant to mimic the look of a body riddled with bullet holes.
“Appropriately, it has five shots, and is dotted with five milk ‘bullet holes,'” blogTo wrote. “Perfect for when even you’re not sure whether you yourself are alive or dead.”
Unlike Tupac, who died after being shot on the Las Vegas strip, you have to be very much alive and a bit of dick to purchase this drink.
Unlike Tupac, who died after being shot on the Las Vegas strip, you have to be very much alive and a bit of dick to purchase this drink.
Clearly, the people at Run And Gun were working toward some sort of core idea, but it’s unclear whether anyone understood the (very bad) optics of adorning their establishment with large murals of guns pointing at customers and making light of the fact that Biggie and Pac were murder victims.
When I reached out to Run And Gun via their Instagram page to ask for a phone number to contact them, I was informed that they currently don’t have a phone number to take business calls and instead provided me with an e-mail address to send my questions to. We’ll update if I hear back.