Ledo Pizza is known for its rectangular pies, which happen to be the same shape as a flag.

Forsaken Foes / Flickr

On the 18th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Ledo Pizza issued a tweet to commemorate the occasion.

“#NeverForget,” the local chain tweeted, alongside an American flag emoji and an image of its square pizza pie meant to resemble the flag, with olives standing in for stars and pepperoni as stripes.

It wasn’t the first time a brand tweeted about the solemn day. Who can forget when AT&T promoted a cell phone with an image of the Twin Towers? Or when sex toy manufacturer Fleshlight called on us all to “honor those still fighting for freedom”?

But apparently, Ledo Pizza’s pizza-flag tweet ruffled some feathers, because it was quickly replaced by another post that used an actual photo of the flag instead of the chain’s cheese-laden Star Spangled Banner. Alongside that updated tweet was an extensive apology.

“This morning, Ledo Pizza posted a photo of a pizza decorated as a flag of the United States of America on Twitter. As you may know, we regularly use this photo to show our Patriotism and Love for our country during holidays and remembrances,” the brand tweeted.

And indeed, Ledo had already tweeted out its flag pizza twice this year—on Memorial Day (“Today we remember all those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Freedom isn’t Free.“) and before the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team faced off against England in the semifinals of the World Cup.

Here’s a look at the flag pizza in question:

“While most fans are used to seeing this photo and share our Patriotism, a few Twitter users took offense to this imagery and for this we are sincerely sorry. Our Twitter post was never intended to diminish the gravity of September 11th and has since been removed,” the thread continued. “Again, if you are familiar with Ledo Pizza, you know that we would never intentionally do anything to dishonor our flag and we hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive us for this misstep. #WeAreSincerelySorry“

This being the year of our lord 2019, Ledo Pizza’s apology set off a new round of recriminations from people who thought that the only mistake the chain made was in deleting and apologizing the original tweet. “I think it’s pathetic that you actually apologized for making a patriotic pizza!” wrote one user in a good summation of that perspective.

As of press time, Ledo Pizza has not tweeted since the apology.

Filed Under: Ledo Pizza, twitter,