Farmingdale Restaurant Continues NFL Boycott On Super Bowl Sunday

FARMINGDALE, NJ — If you were planning to go to Woody's Roadside Tavern to grab a burger or a steak Sunday evening, you are out of luck.

The Farmingdale restaurant and bar, which stopped showing NFL games in November amid the furor over NFL players kneeling in protest during the national anthem, announced it is closing at 5 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday and continuing its boycott of the games.

In a statement posted to Facebook, the owners wrote: "Since Veterans Day we have not shown the NFL and will continue to not broadcast the NFL on Superbowl (sic) Sunday. We hope that next season the players find a better way to bring light to issues and stand and respect our flag and anthem."

They were offering catering orders that had to be picked up by 4 p.m. but were shutting down entirely at 5 p.m.

In November, the bar's owners decided to stop showing the games after one of their customers, who is a Vietnam veteran, asked the manager to turn off the football games for Veterans Day out of respect for the day.

"I think the idea originally came up because they felt disrespected by some of the NFL players," Rob Johnson, 52, one of the bar's three owners, told Patch at the time. "We're not trying to make a big political statement; we're just here supporting our veterans and our military. The veterans are the ones who fight for us and give us our freedom of speech. It's a beautiful thing we can both be on opposite sides of an argument thanks to them."

In addition, Woody's donated a percentage of its Veterans Day food sales to the Green Beret Foundation, which supports local military families in need. More than $10,320 was raised that day, the owners said. This was split evenly between the three charities; The Green Beret Foundation, Special Forces Charitable Trust and Task Force Dagger.The photo below is the presentation of donations to Special Forces Association Chapter 19 - True American Heroes.

The move to stop showing the games prompted a groundswell of community support for the bar, and the owners decided to continue the boycott, though Woody's remained open on Sundays.

Woody's Roadside Tavern in Farmingdale, via Google Maps