Memphis Pizza Owner Turns Away Guardsmen, Father Says They Are ‘Trained to Kill’
A Memphis pizza shop is taking serious heat after its owner admitted he refused to serve four uniformed members of the Tennessee National Guard.
The incident reportedly happened Saturday night at Tamboli’s Pizza & Pasta in Midtown Memphis. Four members connected to the Memphis Safe Task Force came in for a meal while in uniform. They did not get served.
Owner Miles Tamboli later confirmed the move and made it clear he was not backing down.
In a statement to Action News 5, Tamboli said:
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.
That statement lit a fire under the story.
For many people, the issue is simple. Four service members walked into a restaurant in uniform and were denied food because of what they represented. That is not a policy debate in a city council room. That is a direct slap at people serving under orders.
Tamboli framed the refusal as a protest against the task force, not against the individual Guard members. But that distinction has not satisfied critics, who say the Guardsmen were the ones who paid the price in the moment.
The backlash grew after Roy Tamboli, the owner’s father, defended his son online.
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.”
The “trained to kill” line is the part many people are focusing on. Critics see it as an ugly way to describe National Guard members who are often called up for disaster relief, public safety support, and emergency response.
The Memphis Safe Task Force has been a major point of political tension. Supporters argue the operation is helping restore order and push back against violent crime. According to prior reporting from The Gateway Pundit, the multi-agency effort involving the Tennessee National Guard, U.S. Marshals, and federal partners has topped 10,000 arrests, seized more than 1,700 illegal firearms, located missing children, and coincided with major drops in violent crime.
Opponents, including Tamboli, say the deployment has created fear and blurred the line between military and police work.
Either way, refusing service to uniformed Guard members has now put Tamboli’s Pizza & Pasta in the middle of a national argument. And in a military town, a southern city, and a country where many families have someone who served, this is the kind of decision people do not forget quickly.