Tag Archives: strange restaurant names

In 19th-century America most eating places were named for their owners. But in the 20th century, despite the continuing prevalence of proper names, more creative names began to appear. For instance, a 1912 directory of Black-owned restaurants in Chicago included the Crazy Corner Café and the Wa-Wa.

Greenwich Village of the 1920s pushed the vogue further. Columnist O. O. McIntyre was one who sneered at names of eating places there such as the Purple Pup, the Mauve Moon, and the Cerise Cat. In fact, they heralded a trend soon popping up everywhere, especially in casual eateries and tea rooms. Names linked to colors, birds, and animals proved especially popular with tea room proprietors.

Newspaper columnists were alert to new and strange restaurant names. In 1927 a Seattle writer noted, “The bluebird and the red robin both sing the song of food. Being an especially noble bird the eagle soars over four hamburger houses, and thus is more active than any other animal as far as eat signs are concerned.”

Other eateries went further, with names that were attention-getting but far from charming such as the O-U-Pig Stand in Knoxville TN or Ptomaine Tommy’s in Los Angeles.

Busy Bees were found in almost every city, but they didn’t seem to head into the countryside much.

Restaurant names grabbed the attention of visitors from England. In 1929 the husband and wife authors of On Wandering Wheels noted inns and tea rooms in Connecticut with names such as Steppe Inn, Kumrite Inn, Wontcha Drive Inn and others they dubbed collectively “Ye Old Roade House.” A few years later another English vacationer marveled over a long list of “strange names” he compiled including Do Drop Inn, Dew Drop Inn, and Due Drop Inn. [Doo Drop Inn, Muskegon MI]

Why the rise of fanciful — and often hopelessly corny — names? I suspect it was competition that drove small businesses to attempt to stand out from the crowd. But it’s also probable that some proprietors who came from foreign lands were quite eager to hide their surnames during the anti-immigrant 1920s.

If anything, the Depression of the 1930s stimulated the use of creative names, as a glance at city directories reveals. Columbus OH had a Zulu Hut and a Pig Stile. Buffalo patrons could choose Da Nite Diner or Just-A-Mere Grille or one of seven “new” places, whether New Buffalo Lunch, New Chicago Lunch, New Genesee Restaurant, New Haven Lunch, New Main Lunch, New Popular Lunch, or New Texas Lunch. Exactly what about them was new is lost in time.

Even the trade magazine The American Restaurant got into the habit of collecting strange names in 1947, calling attention to lists that included Grabateria, Dizzy Whiz, and Blu Baboon. The columns also added to the growing list of names using the word “inn” with Weasku Inn, Hello Inn, Venture Inn, Brother-in-Law Inn, and Welcome Inn.

Continuing the once-irresistible urge to combine punning names with “inn,” here are others I’ve found, dating from the teens through the 40s: Always Inn, Bungle Inn, Chick Inn, Duck Inn, Du-Kum-Inn, Fiddle Inn, Fly Inn, Jitterbug Inn, Kum Inn, Pour Inn, Ramble Inn, Stumble Inn, Tip Toe Inn, Toddle Inn, and Tumble Inn.

Perhaps the long-lasting attraction to bizarre names actually peaked in the 1970s when restaurant groups spread themed chains across the country, often with names I would nominate for the most absurd of all, exemplified by Baby Doe’s Matchless Mine [Denver location pictured].

By now we’ve grown accustomed to many names that once drew attention, but have become ordinary. It’s unlikely that anyone still thinks of Drive Inn, now usually without the second “n,” as an originally punning name. Maid Rite and White Castle seem unremarkable as does Applebee’s, especially since deleting the initials T. J. which, thankfully, had fallen out of fashion.

© Jan Whitaker, 2023