By Benjamin Cross
When you walk into a small-town diner in Vermont, you expect a hot cup of coffee, a plate of eggs, and maybe a friendly chat about the weather. What you don’t expect is for the business to be run by someone who openly wishes death upon her neighbors.
That’s exactly what’s happening at The Hartland Diner, owned by Nicole Bartner, right here in Windsor County. Instead of building community, Bartner has turned her diner’s Facebook page into a platform for rage, insults, and hostility. The evidence is right there in her own posts (see screenshots).
One post calls Republicans “filthy Rebs” who should “die screaming in a fire.” Another celebrates the death of Charlie Kirk and spins it into bizarre conspiracy theories. Others sneer at Christians, mocking scripture and praying that white evangelicals would vanish by sundown so “the rest of us can eat our pie in peace.”
This isn’t just “politics mixed with breakfast.” This is hate speech with hash browns.
The Line Bartner Crossed
Some will shrug and say, “It’s her page, she can say what she wants.” True — free speech covers a lot of ground, even the ugly parts. But let’s not confuse free speech with decent speech. When a local business owner uses her public platform to call for people to burn alive or disappear, it’s not just tasteless — it’s dangerous.
Free speech means you can speak without government punishment. It doesn’t mean the community has to stay silent while a business owner publicly dehumanizes her neighbors.
This Isn’t Vermont
Vermont is small. Hartland is smaller. We know our neighbors. We look out for one another. We’ve always prided ourselves on civility, even when we disagree.
Disagreement is healthy. Debate is necessary. But open calls for violence? Mocking the faith of half the town? That’s not Vermont. That’s not community. That’s bitterness, weaponized.
When a diner stops serving food and starts serving verbal venom, it ceases to be a place of welcome. It becomes something else entirely — a pulpit of hate dressed up as a breakfast joint.
A Choice for the Community
So here’s the question: Do you want your dollars funding this kind of rhetoric? Every cup of coffee sold is fuel for a business that mocks, demeans, and divides. Every time the community shrugs, it gives permission. And permission is how this kind of ugliness spreads.
Hartland deserves better. Vermont deserves better. A diner should bring people together, not cheer for their destruction.
The truth is simple: we don’t strengthen our state or our country by standing silent when local businesses preach hate. We strengthen it by saying, loud and clear: “No thanks — not here, not now, not ever.”
🔥 Final word: Hartland, Vermont doesn’t need a hate-pulpit disguised as a diner. And the fact that Nicole Bartner has chosen to make her business a megaphone for hate means the community has every right to push back. Don’t feed it with your silence — or your wallet.
54 responses to “When a Diner Turns into a Pulpit of Hate”
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Hunting season in Vermont starts soon, I suggest a large group of Hartland hunters go in for breakfast and enjoy some free speech! What do you bet she’d call the cops and say she was threatened? She is a sick individual.
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The cops she hates. There’s been multiple post of hers that are quite distasteful towards law enforcement
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I once asked the new owner of the building why he doesn’t expand the grocery store space and get rid of the diner. His response “I’m not going to poke that bear”! She is bat shit crazy!
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So many snowflakes on this page! Someone call Elsa😂❄️
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Its strange, I was just thinking about the diner… Not this version of the diner, but when the Ashline’s were there. Joanie.
Idk Nicole… I have eaten there while she has run it/owned it.
The food was 😏🤷🏻♀️
Those are some words…. It def puts off alot of hate… neg energy.
Nicole seems to have overlooked that there are MANY mid-liner Republicans who are not MAGA. Its like calling every Democrat a Liberal🤷🏻♀️
Each group has a core belief of some sort… Then its diff rhetoric, agendas ect… Just as Rep isnt interchangeable with MAGA or the other 690 far right extremist groups. Neither are Dems interchangeable with Soc Dems or Liberals or Antifa or whatever far left extremist groups are out there.
Her energy feels and reads the same as what many MAGA and far right extremists are putting out there imho…
To me, nothing good comes from either side’s extremists.
Thankfully, our beautiful nation is full of us mid-liner Reps and mid-liner Dems…
We are neither radical, nor extremists.
We know who is producing our food and how it gets to the grocery, then our tables. We want to ensure that our veterans, seniors, disabled indiv and children have full bellies, safe warm housing and we know the highest rate of homelessness in our nation rn is families.
The working poor, families who earn between $25,000-$45,000 are struggling in VT and all around our nation.
Our belief in our constitution is strong and we are neither racist, facist or full of hate for our fellow men and women…
I wish we had an admin in office focused on uniting us. Not on dividing us.
Its ok to disagree.
If this were a radical, extremist MAGA touting small business owner, would this same author point it out to the community? Would he call for a boycott too?
Idknow? Or is it simply because she is calling out far right religious and political extremists.
I mean… She is doing exactly what he is doing… calling out extremists. He’s calling out lefts, she’s calling out rights…
Weird, right?
I guess they cancel each other out.-
Huh? She’s calling out anyone not liberal, which is like 70% of our country. Equating her hate to this article shows your stripes.
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Don’t use AI art in your articles
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Thank you for publishing what so many of us, across the political divide, feel. Her derranged rhetoric is designed to provoke hatred in an otherwise live and let live peaceful community. I long for the day when I can go into town for breakfast amongst other Hartlander’s who are wise and intelligent enough to leave politics at the door. What we mustn’t do, in response to Nicole Bartner’s taunting and divisive words, is swing the pendulum to the other side and become the very appalling thing we see coming from her.
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So sad that this is what our town is coming to. This is how hate crimes start. Can’t we just stop this right side and left side hate by everyone it’s not helping our country at all. Pretty sad when toddlers are behaving so much better than the Adults! Do better America!
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Hartland Diner USED TO BE a great place to go eat! My family and I used to go there almost every weekend! We haven’t stepped foot in the place since she bought it! She is vile beyond hate! Not sure how there are that many people in our beautiful little town that supports her behavior??🤷♀️
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And if you say some thing on her post she will just be a coward and block you.. horrible business reflects its owner…
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She is a horrible, hate filled, deranged, sad excuse for a human. I hope her business plan of filling your pancakes with hate and zero tolerance make her business fail. I hope the good people of Hartland rise up and boycott her business, and even do what she would do, and march with signs outside her business that expose her hate.
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