What is it about restaurants and meltdowns of the leftwing elites? Is it time to invent a new dish, called the 'lefty-melt'?

Seems that as Brazil's presidential campaign goes into its final stretch with a strong likelihood of a Trump-like conservative named Jair Bolsonaro winning, Brazil's elites are reacting the same way U.S. elites react to President Trump.

Staff of Maní, an elite, chi-chi, oh-so-hip, cool and chic restaurant in Sao Paulo with an awesomely innovative menu, joined a leftist social media campaign against Bolsonaro on Instagram discouraging Bolsonaro's supporters from coming to their restaurant. And surprise, surprise, they found themselves empty on a Saturday night.

Terca Livre, a Brazilian publication that has been compared to Breitbart News, reports that fans have sent film showing how bad it was - and you can see that here.

Here's what they did to make that happen:

The chefs and cooks and waiters all posed together a week ago in a picture with messages written on their arms saying the equivalent of #not-him, #neverhim #never-everhim and #neverf***inghim in reference to Bolsonaro, waving their middle fingers together.

They apparently posted this, according to Terca Livre:

  I don't see that picture on their Instagram site now, which suggests it might have been taken down, but given that this is the Internet, pictures spread. Apparently a rival restaurant posed this either to suggest the group was comprised of idiots or else to support them:

It's a hard fall for a restaurant that was rated #9 on a list of the 50 top restaurants in Latin America, and which Terca Livre noted once had lines of comers snaking out the door. What's more, it's not that expensive: If 40 reais is worth about ten U.S. dollars, the menu shows that most entres in the fancy establishment go for about ten bucks. That would be cheap in Los Angeles or Manhattan.

Terca Livre, via Google Translate (with some tweaks from me), wrote:

The publication was indeed controversial with many comments, both against its act and in favor.

Some netizens soon followed a boycott campaign against the restaurant. Yesterday, about 6 days after the chef's political-gastronomic demonstration, a client entered, filmed and published in social networks the establishment situation: completely empty. The place had been one to line up for and fight for places.

Chase out those marginal, Neanderthal, deplorable, fascist, benighted Bolsonaro supporters ... and find yourself in for a surprise.

With restaurants like this empty, I have a feeling that support for Bolsonaro might just be a bit deeper than members of Brazil's polite society are letting on.