More about odd restaurant names

When I started looking up strange business names for restaurants I was thinking this was something in the past. I was so-o-o-o wrong. It’s impossible to say how many there are – or how many there have ever been, but now I’m convinced that they are as popular as ever, probably even more so than in the past. [Denver Post comic strip, 1997]

This was strongly confirmed when I discovered a current online ad for a business that is dedicated to helping people find the right name for their new restaurants. It lists over a hundred novelty restaurant names that were operating at the time the site was created. Some are clever, some are ultra-corny, and some are borderline objectionable. I don’t think any of them would draw me in because of their names alone.

In the past – probably beginning in the 1950s, odd restaurant names were still unusual enough that newspaper columnists would write about them. It was considered newsworthy or at least unusual enough to attract readers. That focus would tend to be ridiculous today because it’s no longer much of a novelty to have a strange or comical name.

Also, it now seems quaint that in 1957 a columnist for a paper in Washington thought that the restaurants opening in a Sheraton Hotel were “unusual.” They were Café Careme, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, and Indian Queen Tavern. Today they don’t seem unusual at all.

As I look over my notes and an earlier post on restaurant names, I realize the attraction to whimsical names began in the early 20th century, with tea rooms prominent among them. Aside from them, most of the restaurants that adopted funny names were casual eateries, not formal or expensive restaurants. That is probably the case today too. [Above: 1921 advertisement from a Norfolk VA newspaper]

Places that made fun of themselves could have a strong attraction, with Ptomaine Tommy’s, dating back to 1913, being a prime example.

In one notable case, an odd name caused problems for its owner. A restaurant in Detroit was losing customers in 1970 because it was named Mercury Fish and Chips. Trouble was that this was the time when mercury was being discovered in fish in Lake Erie and other lakes. She was losing about a fifth of her business because of this. The name was not even meant to be cute but had a name that mainly indicated it was a fish restaurant. She had kept Mercury in the name because that was the name of the very popular restaurant that preceded hers and she thought it would be a draw.

In another case, the strange restaurant name Le Garbage, as well as its location 200 feet from a sanitary landfill in Pennsylvania would have seemed to be a guarantee of failure. But it was a very popular truck stop with its customers, trash haulers. They found it all funny, including the joking observation about food being brought in fresh daily.

A popular trick name for a restaurant is The Bank, which allows related naming for everything on the menu from main dishes such as Money Bags and The Stick Up, and side dishes under the heading Loose Change, as in a 1970s menu of an Indiana restaurant.

It’s almost needless to say that odd, funny, or even puzzling restaurant names are meant to draw attention, stand out in the crowd, and perhaps lure curious customers. With the increase of restaurants over time, it may seem more necessary than ever to have a name that is comically appealing. But, how well does this actually work? Hard to say.

Clearly there are some who enjoy them while others are going to avoid them, reasoning that the emphasis is on cutesiness rather than cuisine.

© Jan Whitaker, 2025