A Memphis pizza restaurant is facing a spreading boycott after its owner refused to serve four members of the Tennessee National Guard last Saturday, igniting a national argument about the Memphis Safe Task Force, the role of the military in local law enforcement, and whether an American business owner has the right to turn away uniformed service members.
Miles Tamboli, owner of Tamboli's Pasta & Pizza, confirmed to Fox News Digital that he turned away the four Guardsmen and said he would "make the same decision tomorrow." Tamboli's objection is not to the military as an institution but specifically to the federally led Memphis Safe Task Force — a Trump administration initiative launched in September 2025 that deploys National Guard troops alongside local police, federal agents, and state troopers to address violent crime in the city. Tamboli argues the task force has made Memphis less safe, not more, citing MPD data showing crime was at a 25-year low through the first eight months of 2025 before the task force arrived, and pointing to the May shooting death of 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson at the hands of National Guard troops during a foot chase — an incident that produced no body camera footage and, he says, no answers for Johnson's family.
"I love this country and I love this city, and that is exactly why I made this call. Memphis was already getting safer before this Task Force ever arrived. That progress was earned by the people of this city. It was not delivered by soldiers." — Miles Tamboli, owner of Tamboli's Pasta & Pizza
The backlash online has been swift and severe. Users on X launched a #BoycottTamboli campaign, with one Memphis resident writing that businesses that disrespect the men and women protecting their city don't deserve support. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, publicly backed the boycott push. Tamboli, for his part, has not backed down, maintaining that the four Guardsmen he turned away were instruments of a policy he views as harmful to the Black and brown communities of Memphis — not individuals he holds any personal animus toward. He framed his refusal as an act of civic conscience, not hostility to military service.
The Memphis Safe Task Force was established by executive order following years of the city ranking among the most dangerous in the country by violent crime rate. The Trump administration credits the task force with a significant reduction in violent incidents in targeted areas of the city. Critics — including civil liberties groups, some local elected officials, and now Tamboli — argue the initiative has produced a climate of fear in Memphis's most vulnerable neighborhoods, with routine traffic enforcement displacing the violent crime focus the task force was supposedly designed to address.
The shooting of Tyrin Johnson by Tennessee National Guard troops in May 2026 remains under investigation. Johnson, 20, was shot during a foot pursuit. No body camera footage of the incident has been released. The Memphis Safe Task Force has not publicly addressed the absence of footage. The task force has made thousands of arrests in Memphis since its September 2025 launch, the overwhelming majority stemming from traffic stops rather than violent crime interdiction, according to its own published records.
Whatever one thinks of Tamboli's politics, the four Guardsmen he turned away on Saturday night are not the Memphis Safe Task Force. They are individuals who put on a uniform and showed up for duty in a city that needed help — and they were refused a meal because of a policy disagreement their owner had with their chain of command. American service members deserve better than that, regardless of the debate about the initiative they serve under. The boycott is a legitimate market response, and Memphians who disagree with Tamboli's decision are fully within their rights to take their pizza dollars elsewhere.