Why Penzeys Spice is getting a surge of right-wing backlash, including from Trump

For most Milwaukeeans, the political slant of Wauwatosa-based Penzeys Spices is more or less common knowledge.

Penzeys founder Bill Penzey has been outspoken for years against former president Donald Trump and the Republican Party, with the company even paying for a highway billboard during the Republican National Convention calling out Trump supporters' 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But Penzeys' political activism became news to a national audience this past week after Vice President Kamala Harris visited the store — and the renewed attention has earned the company a surge of online backlash, including from Trump himself.

Bill Penzey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here's how Penzeys Spices became a hot topic in the presidential race and why people are flooding the store with one-star Yelp reviews.

Kamala Harris visits Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh

The chain of events started over the weekend, when Harris visited a Penzeys location in Pittsburgh. Though Penzeys was founded nearly three decades ago in Wisconsin, the company has since expanded to open stores nationwide , including two in Pennsylvania.

The vice president — who stopped in the store amid a break from debate prep — was greeted by a cheering crowd of Pittsburgh locals, according to a video clip of the visit .

"I look forward to using my new seasonings from Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh at our next Sunday family dinner," the vice president posted to X on Sept. 8 after her visit.

Penzeys also shared a photo of the visit on its Facebook page , alongside the message, "We are humbled. Please work to make our Vice President our next President. Please get out every vote."

Penzeys catches aflame with right-wing influencers, Trump calls the store 'terrible'

Shortly after Harris's visit, right-wing influencers discovered Penzeys' long history of political activism for themselves — and it came as a surprise to them.

Calls soon emerged to boycott the spice company, including from far-right political activist Laura Loomer:

Meanwhile, people more supportive of Penzeys' stances vowed to begin supporting the company:

On Sept. 9, the former president himself weighed in with a post on Truth Social, using his new "Comrade Kamala" nickname for the vice president, which seeks to falsely label her as a communist.

"Comrade Kamala Harris goes to an ultra Left Wing, Trump Hating, spice shop, which I hear has terrible, overpriced product, and calls for 'unity,'" Trump posted.

Penzeys Spices flooded with negative reviews, Yelp disables posting

All of the online attention led to surge of reviews on the company's Yelp page . Many are negative, one-star reviews criticizing its anti-conservative stances, but a fair amount are positive and expressing support for Penzeys' products and politics.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Yelp actually paused reviews of Penzeys because recent public attention had led to people coming to the page "to post their views on the news," a Yelp statement on the company's page read .

"While we don't take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we've temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events," the statement said.

As of Wednesday, Penzeys still held an overall 4.1-star rating out of 2,000 reviews.

About 80 reviews were "not recommended" by Yelp and therefore not factored into the business's overall star rating. These reviews largely focused on criticizing the company's liberal slant.