Mr. Pickle’s closes Davis shop after franchisee compares Black Lives Matter to KKK

Mr. Pickle’s Sandwich Shop has permanently closed its Davis location after a franchisee compared Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan and organized crime groups in an email to staff.

The restaurant at 2191 Cowell Blvd., Suite F was shut down at the end of business Tuesday after franchisee Mickey Mann’s email earlier in the week, company president Michele Fagundes confirmed in a statement to The Sacramento Bee.

“Mr. Pickles is a franchise network of independently owned and operated shops. Corporate has been notified of the alarming and painful statements made by the owner of the Davis shop to his staff,” Fagundes said. “We made the decision to terminate his franchise and is now permanently closed for business. If that location ever reopens, it will be under new ownership that upholds our corporate standards.”

In the email to staff posted to Nextdoor, franchisee Mickey Mann railed against employees who had worn Black Lives Matter pins to the store, saying they forced a political issue into a nonpolitical space. Though he did not support the movement, he would have had the same reaction had they worn far-right paraphernalia, he said.

Mann then accused his own staff of attempting to bully and oppress him and his wife/co-franchisee Bonnie Mann, both Roseville residents. He had no fear of the consequences of standing up to them, he said, because he could restart the store with fresh employees if all of them quit.

“The BLM is the flip side of the KKK. Their tactics are out of the Mafia play book (sic),” Mann wrote. “They are no better than some of the worst oppressive regimes in the world. Equal rights, fairness under the law, and any other buzz phrases they use are not their agenda. Oppression, turmoil and chaos is their agenda.”

“The BLM has become your Puppet Masters. You have swallowed their Kool-Aid. They have unleashed you on us. They have directed you to forcefully bend me to their will. You and the BLM are the aggressors here, not I.”

Bonnie Mann contacted the Davis Police Department in regards to libel, slander and threats made against the couple, Mickey Mann wrote. He also alluded to giving certain employees’ names to police if Mr. Pickle’s was vandalized. The department’s Tuesday night call log shows a Cowell Boulevard business owner called police at around 10 p.m., concerned his or her property would be vandalized by Black Lives Matter activists.

A phone number listed as the Manns’ had no active voicemail.

Fagundes and her husband, Frank, founded Mr. Pickle’s in San Mateo in 1995. The Loomis-based California chain has 15 locations between Yolo, Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento counties.

This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 5:17 PM.