MOUNT GREENWOOD — Lights. Camera. Gotcha.
Barraco's came clean on Saturday about a pair of messages posted on social media saying actor Vince Vaughn was planning to film a movie at its Mount Greenwood restaurant.
"We know our customers well in that we know you will take this as a joke and laugh it off as life really needs some humor in it once in awhile right?" the restaurant posted on Facebook on Saturday.
The original message was posted on Barraco's main Facebook page on April 1. It instructed customers to "like," share or comment on the post if they were interested in being extras in a film planned for 2015.
Howard Ludwig says he was almost was fooled too:
Plenty of folks took the bait. Barraco's Facebook post had 18,771 "likes" on Monday morning, had been shared 6,419 times and included a long string of comments from fans saying things like, "Pick me! Pick me!!!"
Barraco's also posted the phony filming notice on Twitter on April 1, asking followers to re-tweet the post if they were interested in appearing as extras on the film. By Monday morning, the post had been re-tweeted 516 times.
Barraco's admitted to the hoax with the same message posted on both Facebook and Twitter on Saturday.
Included in the message was a nod to gullible customers, many of whom were bitten by the Hollywood bug after seeing the post.
"Because y'all are such great sports, we are going to give away some FREE pizzas to different people who commented on the Vince Vaughn April Fools joke," Barraco's social media post read.
For what it's worth, the post revealing the prank wasn't embraced with the same fervor — only 215 Facebook users clicked the "like" button. The Tweet from Barraco's in which the Italian restaurant came clean was re-tweeted only twice.
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