“It’s all a bunch of nothing. Why don’t you tell someone to come on down here in uniform and see if we serve them,” said Marvin Weaver, owner of Shady Maple Farm Market.

The popular East Earl Township market and eatery first fielded calls from inquisitive customers in December, said Elwood Martin, Shady Maple’s operations manager.

Recently, as e-mails have carried the rumor through cyberspace, the calls have increased, Martin said.

“Boy, two weeks ago, this thing hit the fan. We’ve been getting seven to nine calls a day, saying you dirty rotten people,” Martin said.

Shady Maple was besieged by similar rumors in 1991, during the first Gulf War.

At that time, the restaurant came under fire for supposedly refusing to serve customers wearing yellow ribbons in support of the military.

The e-mail currently circulating states that a soldier who had just returned from Iraq went to eat at Shady Maple, but the restaurant “said they would not serve the man in the military uniform.”

The rumors were false in 1991, and they’re false now, Weaver and Martin said.

In order to combat the rumors, Shady Maple has put a statement on its Web site:

“There have been e-mail rumors that we do not serve our Military men and women in uniform, this is absolutely false! Please stop by and try us out. We serve ALL!”

Many of the restaurant and market’s staff are Mennonites, who reject violence. This may lead some to question their patriotism during war time.

“We’re an easy target because of our core beliefs. We’re non-resistant, non-combatant, but that doesn’t have anything to do with us as a service people,” Martin said.

Similar tales of veterans returning from Iraq and finding inhospitable restaurants have surfaced in South Carolina and Minnesota, according to a Web Site that tracks urban legends. Both stories were found to be baseless, according to the site, www.snopes.com
There is even a term, “netlore,” for suspicious items that quickly travel from e-mail inbox to inbox with little basis in fact.

According to the writer of the Shady Maple e-mail, he, or she, is a former employee of the restaurant.

Martin said that he and his staff have tried to trace the e-mail’s origins, but stopped after deciding there was no point.

“It just saddens me that this goes on,” Martin said.

“I’m learning valuable lessons, though. I’m learning the power of the Internet. It goes through there like fire.”