Viral story puts spotlight on downtown Cape restaurant

The story is presumably fake. But a Cape Girardeau restaurant still is raking in publicity from a locally viral post that claims Will Ferrell ate at a downtown eatery and loved the food.

A story from “entertainment website” www.16wmpo.com claims Ferrell was traveling through Cape Girardeau when his rental car broke down.

Some locals stopped to help, took him to Stevie’s Steakburger on Broadway and then sent him on his way.

Later, on a radio program, the website said, Ferrell praised the restaurant and the town for its hospitality.

The website contains a disclaimer stating it is an entertainment website featuring mostly satirical content.

“The articles on 16wmpo.com are not real,” the disclaimer reads. “They’re meant to be humorous, and they’re for your entertainment.”

But the 372 “shares” the story received after it was posted to the Stevie’s Steakburger Facebook page with the statement “OK, so this happened!” suggests many perceived the story to be true.

Lauren Stegeman, marketing director for Taste of Cape, which operates Stevie’s Steakburger along with several other restaurants in downtown Cape Girardeau, could not confirm the validity of the story.

“I don’t know where it came from,” Stegeman said Thursday. “Somebody tagged us in it, stating that Stevie’s Steakburger was mentioned, so we shared it.”

Neither the restaurant nor Taste of Cape was involved in the story’s creation, she said, but they are enjoying the publicity it has brought.

Comments on the shared post indicate a mixed bag of approval, many expressing skepticism or citing the website’s disclaimer, while others are excited to see some celebrity news out of Cape Girardeau.

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