text: A New York restaurant has a pulled a dessert called ‘Roofie Colada’ from its menu after angry backlash over social media. 
   
   The Phunky Elephant in Staten Island is known for its decadent after dinner creations like its Cookie Crumble Martini and Milky Way cocktail. The ‘Roofie Colada’ was a dessert-drink hybrid made with coffee ice cream, Kahlua, vanilla vodka, caramel, chocolate syrup, topped with donuts and whipped cream. The name is allegedly derived from a joke on the cartoon “Family Guy,” reports Advance media via SILive.com. 
   
   Seen at The Phunky Elephant on Staten Island. Complaints can be registered on their FB page. http://t.co/1tKOMdxzyC pic.twitter.com/S7noMYHiaZ — Ilyssa Silfen (@IlyssaSilfen) June 15, 2014 
   
   The dessert has been on the menu since the summer, appearing after the episode when the joke originally aired. Patricia Gaja, who owns the gastropub, admitted that she had been receiving complains about the dish for months, but felt that recent backlash was getting out of hand. 
   
   “Even with all that whipped cream you can't make a rape joke palatable. Roofie Colada = Not Funny,” user Lauren Marie posted. 
   
   Ilyssa Silfen, a patron who dined at the restaurant called out the restaurant on their Facebook page and received what she called a flip response: 
   
   “For the record, you know that there aren't any 'date rape' drugs in this dessert, right?" the Facebook response from The Phunky Elephant stated. "Just to be clear because I think you're taking this a little too far." 
   
   But now the restaurant has changed its attitude amid a string of more complaints. On Tuesday, page administrators posted an apology and said the drink will be taken off the menu until a suitable name replacement is found. 
   
   "The Phunky Elephant is a place with a unique atmosphere. We treat our guests with the utmost respect and we are always open to feedback to make our restaurant a welcoming and comfortable place with a touch of humor and quirkiness,” the message reads “ 
   
   “We certainly did not intend to create an impression of reckless or negligent behavior by presenting the desert at question to our guests nor did we mean to make anyone feel uncomfortable or insulted. This desert name was simply a homage to an adult cartoon and there was no malice. We obviously do not support date rape or any sort of violence for that matter." 
   
   "We humbly apologize if we have offended anyone and we appreciate the community around us and its awareness toward the cause. Please be advised that the dessert is currently off the menu until it is appropriately renamed." ||||| STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A controversial dessert name at the Phunky Elephant bar and restaurant has been removed from the menu after residents called the item offensive and insensitive. 
   
   The Rosebank restaurant's "Roofie Colada" dessert — with whipped cream, coffee ice cream and vanilla vodka — was a nod to the comedy of Fox's "Family Guy" animated series. But many say regardless of the original joke, the drug linked to date rape is nothing to take lightly. 
   
   "Even with all that whipped cream you can't make a rape joke palatable," wrote Lauren Marie Cappello on the restaurant's Facebook review page. 
   
   In response to an inquiry from the Advance, Patricia Gaja, the owner of Phunky Elephant, said the restaurant would be renaming the item, which has been receiving complaints since it debuted on the menu in June. 
   
   "We certainly did not intend to create an impression of reckless or negligent behavior by presenting the desert at question to our guests nor did we mean to make anyone feel uncomfortable or insulted," Gaja wrote. 
   
   Critics of the dessert's name say the reference was harmful because it normalized "roofies" as a date rape drug, making it acceptable to joke about a type of behavior that often leads to rape or sexual assault. 
   
   Gaja said she thought the criticism had "gotten a little bit out of hand," but she said she does "understand where people are coming from." 
   
   She and the restaurant staff came up with the name over the summer, after the Family Guy episode which mentioned the joke aired. She said she had only heard of one in-person complaint, but saw many on social media. 
   
   Prior to its removal from the menu, several patrons voiced their disapproval to restaurant employees. Up until Tuesday, the response was generally unsympathetic, said Stapleton resident Jeremiah Jurkiewicz. He spent his birthday at the restaurant with a group of friends over the summer. When they noticed the dessert, one of his friends expressed concern to a restaurant employee. 
   
   "They just said, 'we really like Family Guy here,'" Jurkiewicz said. 
   
   Other patrons told the Advance that when they tried to speak to restaurant employees about the item, the staff referenced the Family Guy episode. A friend of Jurkiewicz's, Ilyssa Silfen, publicly commented on the restaurant's Facebook page about the dessert. The response from the company was dismissive and insensitive, Silfen said. 
   
   "For the record, you know that there aren't any 'date rape' drugs in this dessert, right?" the Facebook response stated. "Just to be clear because I think you're taking this a little too far." 
   
   The message went on to criticize the public nature of the message she wrote, saying their response may have been different if she had sent them a private message. 
   
   Silfen said the response "showed me that they don't care about how they're trivializing the deadly serious issue of rape in our society as well as the pain and trauma of those who have been assaulted this way." 
   
   The Phunky Elephant's public apology stated that the naming of the dessert was not meant to condone rape. 
   
   "This desert name was simply a homage to an adult cartoon and there was no malice," the statement read. "We obviously do not support date rape or any sort of violence for that matter. We humbly apologize if we have offended anyone and we appreciate the community around us and its awareness toward the cause." 
   
   The dessert item was shared on social media and has stirred a debate among patrons, many of whom see no problem with the name of the dessert and have encouraged others not to get offended by the joke. When local musician Carl Gallagher posted a picture of the item from his visit on Saturday, it drew more than 90 comments. 
   
   "People generally either agree that it's in poor taste or say 'lighten up, it's just a joke,'" he said. "I can see both points of view. I think the issue here is this: an individual can say anything he wants and offend whomever he wishes. But an establishment has a responsibility to listen to the people whose money keeps them in business." 
   
   Gallagher and his girlfriend raised the issue with a restaurant employee during their meal, but said the employee laughed it off. 
   
   Several of Gallagher's friends responded that the intent was not malicious. 
   
   "I think that people hate the name, and associate 'roofie' instantly with date rape, which is probably not what the owners had in mind," local musician and north shore resident Rob Carey told the Advance. 
   
   The mixture of responses is troubling to residents like Jurkiewicz, who said it would be easy to change the name of the item instead of justify it. 
   
   "It just shows how people don't take things like rape and sexual assault seriously," Jurkiewicz said. 
   
   Gaja said the restaurant is in the process of creating a new seasonal menu now, which won't include the Roofie Colada. 
   
   "We'll put a little more thought into things and make sure we don't make anyone feel uncomfortable," she said. "The last thing we want is for people to feel uncomfortable by the name of something on our menu."
target: – Family Guy humor works on the Family Guy, but not, apparently, on a drinks' menu. A Staten Island bar and restaurant has retired its "Roofie Colada" and apologized to patrons offended by what they saw as a date-rape joke, reports Fox News. The Phunky Elephant put the vokda and kahlua drink on the menu over the summer as a salute to the animated show, whose character Quaqmire is known to order it for his dates. Complaints began surfacing in person and online, but the restaurant initially shrugged them off, reports Staten Island Live. "For the record, you know that there aren't any 'date rape' drugs in this dessert, right?" went one Facebook reply from the restaurant a while back. But with criticism gathering social-media steam, Patricia Gaja pulled the drink and said it would be renamed. "We certainly did not intend to create an impression of reckless or negligent behavior," she wrote. "Nor did we mean to make anyone feel uncomfortable or insulted."