Leftist Pizza Shop Owner Refuses to Serve Four Uniformed Tennessee National Guard Members — Father Defends Son’s Decision: “They are Trained to Kill, Not to De-Escalate”

A Memphis restaurant is facing intense backlash after its owner openly admitted that he refused to serve four uniformed members of the Tennessee National Guard and says he has absolutely no regrets.

According to local reports, four members of the Memphis Safe Task Force, who were simply trying to get a meal while in uniform on Saturday night, were denied service at Tamboli’s Pizza & Pasta in Midtown Memphis.

Restaurant owner Miles Tamboli later confirmed the decision in a public statement.

Tamboli defended his actions by arguing that the National Guard’s deployment has made residents fearful and cited criticism of the federal task force operating in Memphis. He also referenced the recent fatal shooting involving National Guard members and a civilian that remains under investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Read his full statement to Action News 5:

On Saturday night we declined to serve four uniformed members of the Memphis Safe Task Force, and I stand behind that decision completely.

I love this country and I love this city, and that is exactly why I made this call. I want Memphis to be safe. Every business owner does. And the honest truth is that Memphis was already getting safer before this Task Force ever arrived.

Crime was at a 25-year low through the first eight months of 2025, according to the Memphis Police Department’s own data, later confirmed by an independent Tennessee Bureau of Investigation audit. That progress was earned by the people of this city. It was not delivered by soldiers.

What the Task Force has actually done is make this city harder to live in. Its own records show that the overwhelming majority of its arrests began with routine traffic stops, not violent crime. Families in this city are now afraid to drive to work, afraid to take their kids to school, afraid to be seen.

Our own schools reported that fear drove children to stop showing up to class. And this month a 20-year-old Memphian named Tyrin Johnson was shot and killed by National Guard troops during a foot chase, with no body camera footage and no answers for his family. None of that makes us safer. It makes us less safe, and it does the most damage to the people who were already struggling.

Being pro-safety means telling the truth about what actually protects a community, and it is not soldiers trained for combat doing the work of police officers.

That mismatch is dangerous for the people of Memphis and dangerous for the troops themselves, who were sent here to do a job they were never trained for.

The founders wrote their objection to standing armies among the people into the Declaration of Independence itself, because they understood that a free country does not let the military police its own citizens. That principle is older than any political party, and I am not willing to abandon it because it became inconvenient.

Months ago I joined dozens of other local businesses in a public commitment to stand against the military policing our streets, an act of patriotism and conscience both, and I would make the same decision tomorrow.

Following the backlash, Roy Tamboli, the father of restaurant owner Miles Tamboli, publicly defended his son’s decision.

Roy Tamboli wrote:

“I support my son Miles at Tamboli’s, who explained his opinion here:

‘I have friends in the NG and I have respect for them. They do really important work in national defense and disaster response—and that’s what they’re trained for. In a defense capacity, they are trained to kill, not to de-escalate. That’s why they shouldn’t be here. Turning them away is a protest against that, not against them as people. At the end of the day, I’m sorry those boys didn’t get their pizza, but I’m sure they will be okay.’

I also understand that without social media hatred, the tech giants would not be billionaires. Internet addiction is the new plantation that many are struggling to escape from.”

As The Gateway Pundit has reported extensively, President Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force has been a massive success.

The multi-agency operation involving the Tennessee National Guard, U.S. Marshals, and federal partners has surpassed 10,000 arrests, seized more than 1,700 illegal firearms, located missing children, and driven sharp drops in violent crime across the city.

Homicides, robberies, carjackings, and overall crime have plummeted under the deployment that Democrats and local activists have fought tooth and nail.

These four young Guardsmen are the same type of heroes who recently fatally shot an armed thug during a pursuit in Memphis, the kind of criminals who actually make the city unsafe.

Yet a pizza shop owner in Midtown decided they weren’t welcome to sit down and eat, and now his father is defending the decision by saying the troops are “trained to kill.”