Coffee shop named 'Woke' defended after receiving backlash, boycott calls: 'It's disgusting'

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A coffee shop in Coventry, Conn., called Woke Breakfast & Coffee received some online hate for its name from those who thought it was making a progressive political message.

Carmen Quiroga, who runs the café with her husband, was surprised by the backlash.

"I feel so sad [about] the people who don't support my business," Quiroga told "As It Happens" host Nil Köksal on CBC Radio. "I don't know nothing about the controversy."

She said the word is supposed to mean what it was originally intended to, simply to "wake up and have a cup of coffee." The diner's catchphrase is: "You woke up and made the right choice." 

A man works in a coffee shop in  a Manhattan neighborhood on Feb. 5, 2021, in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Town resident Leslie Poirier told CT Insider that it was "crap" some threatened to boycott the restaurant because of the name.

"I think they should hang a sign that says, 'Idiot-free zone,' " Poirier said, according to the outlet.

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The backlash apparently became so heated that the administrator of The Coventry CT Citizen's Open Forum on Facebook had to write a warning. 

"If you are that close-minded that you can't grasp that the name is referring to the fact that it is a breakfast establishment and nothing more, then just keep that to yourself and move on," wrote administrator Tonya Landrie Ohlund. "It's disgusting to read that residents are going to refuse to support a business that is trying to grow in our awesome little town because you don't like what they've named it, without even knowing anything about how they chose that name. Just stop." 

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The Republican Town Committee in Coventry, Conn., also posted a statement about the uproar. 

"While the name at first may set off some conservatives’ alarm bells, it is clear that the owner never intended for it to be a political statement," the post began.    

WHAT DOES ‘WOKE’ MEAN?

Merriam-Webster added the word "woke" to its dictionary in 2017, defining it as: "Aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)." 

The Oxford English Dictionary adopted it the same year, defining it as: "Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice." 

"Woke is a slang term that is easing into the mainstream from some varieties of a dialect called African American Vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE)," according to Merriam-Webster. "In AAVE, awake is often rendered as woke, as in, ‘I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.’"

Protesters gather in support of Trayvon Martin at a 2012 demonstration in New York City.  (Getty Images)

In 2013 and 2014, George Zimmerman's acquittal in Trayvon Martin’s death in Florida and the police-involved death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., sparked Black Lives Matter activism around the country. 

"The word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement; instead of just being a word that signaled awareness of injustice or racial tension, it became a word of action," according to Merriam-Webster. "Activists were woke and called on others to stay woke."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addresses the crowd before publicly signing HB 7, "individual freedom," also dubbed the "Stop Woke" bill during a press conference at Mater Academy Charter Middle/High School in Hialeah Gardens, Florida, on Friday, April 22, 2022.  (Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

The word "woke" made headlines in recent months regarding education. A federal judge in January ruled that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration did not violate a court order regarding the state’s "Stop WOKE Act," which prohibits public colleges from promoting critical race theory lessons and targets other "woke" concepts prevalent on higher education campuses. 

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Fox News Digital's Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.