9/11 museum scraps plans for fancy restaurant run by Shake Shack owner

NEW YORK, July 11 (UPI) -- New York's 9/11 Memorial Museum will no longer feature a high-end restaurant with beer and wine sales after mounting criticism and accusations of insensitivity.

The planned "Pavilion Cafe," run by Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer, will now just be called the "The Cafe" and traded its upscale menu for simple pastries and its liquor license for coffee and tea.

Meyer initially envisioned an 80-seat restaurant with a primarily vegetarian menu featuring craft beers and wine, telling the New York Times it would be a place for visitors to "rest, to reflect and hopefully to be restored" after patronizing the emotionally heavy museum.

Meyer's vision was not met with welcome by New Yorkers

"It's a money-making venture to support inflated salaries, and they're willing to do it over my son's dead body," Diane Horning told the The New York Post. Horning's 26-year-old son Matthew worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. His remains were never recovered.

"Someone's moral compass is finally working," 9/11 first responder John Feal said to the New York Daily News. Feal was critical of the restaurant, and welcomes The Cafe's more subdued approach.

"This is a good thing."