Unusual / Funny Restaurant Names
 

Have you have eaten at or come across a restaurant with an unusual or funny name? Lots of time the name is more intriguing than the menu, and it is usually the thing you remember long after?

For me,
The Crabby Oyster -- southern VA seafood house
The Happy Clam -- Fredericksburg VA
Shang Chai -- Kosher Chinese in Brooklyn (chai is Hebrew symbol for luck)
Chip n' Dales -- the names of the 2 owners of a rather seedy diner in Southern NJ
Chez Wat -- soul food/Chinese restaurant in Philly in 1970s

And, although the restaurant name was not unusual, the signs throughout central PA were and said (I kid you not):
"Stop at Mary's Kitchen for good food and gas" -- I assume it was a restaurant with a service station attached.

A Salt & Battery in West Village in NYC. It's a fish & chip place.
Rehab - a hip bar on Lafayette St.

Cabbage and Condoms Bangkok, Thailand

Cabbage & Condom Restaurant
Sukhumvit, Soi 12
Main/Specialty: Thai. Very nicely laid out – Eat in or outside – no they are not balloons on the walls. Condom photos everywhere, with lots of condom paraphernalia adorning the walls etc. (Started by the Minister for Family Planning (Khun Mechai) several years ago to heighten the awareness of safe sex) Heaps on offer with an English Menu. This is an enticing restaurant – it welcomes you from the Soi; the ambience is quiet and the decorations ‘interesting’. The check/bill came with a condom.

There's two places in Cave Creek, AZ (near Scottsdale) that serve really good BBQ - The Horny Toad and The Satisfied Frog.

Of course, there's the oft-discussed BBQ joint here in Van Nuys, Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler, Texas BBQ.

Ciao Mein was an Italian/Chinese place at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki (and a favorite of mine, esp. when I was in Turandot)

Wok 'n Roll Sushi is "da bomb" over in Old Town Pasadena.

Then there's Legal Seafood in Boston, as well as No Name Seafood.

I was passing through Tracy, CA about 15 years ago and passed a place called Paco's Chop Suey - Mexican/Chinese food. I did not stop.

the Letuce Entertain You chain in Chicago.
I have forgotten where, but I once saw a "Man Bites Dog" frankfurter stand.

[QUOTE=FlyinHawaiian]There's two places in Cave Creek, AZ (near Scottsdale) that serve really good BBQ - The Horny Toad and The Satisfied Frog.QUOTE]

Slightly OT:

I would not recommend the Horny Toad anymore. While they make some fine BBQ sauce, their prices are becoming outrageous. Last time I was there they wanted over $35 for a single rack of ribs.

Better head down Scottsdale Rd and head to Grilled Expedition at Desert Ridge which IMHO has the best ribs in the Valley right now. Not really BBQ ribs per se (They're basted in a Hoisin-Coffee sauce) but damn are they tender. The meat just falls off when you pick up the rib.

Even more OT:

If tender ribs is what you're looking for, don't stop by this back yard late tonight. Doing them nice and dry today in the smoker today. =)

And now back in the direction of Slightly OT:

And I wasn't impressed with The Horny Toad 5 years ago.

And now OnT:

"He's Not Here" on Harlem in Forest Park. Well, actually, more of a bar, but they served pub grub. Too bad they're not there any more. Wonder if they changed the sign to "We're Not Here" the day they closed.

There is a chain of Chinese restaurants here in Madrid called "Thong" and a well known bar called "Cock."

Both are very normal/mainstream places and the meanings seem to be lost on the Spanish...

There is a Chinese place on Fairfax in L.A. called Genghis Cohen.

No word on the quality of their matzoh.

I swear I was JUST gonna mention this place. Never been but I LOVE the name of the place.

My dad used to go to a pub in the Hague called "the office" :)

Chi-Chi's

Which in Spanish it stands for

"Tits" :D

Imagine coming home and telling my wife where I went :o

<SLAP>

Thank God they don't have one in ELP ;)

The Hard Disk Cafe, in Silicon Valley of course!

Not a restaurant, but....
 

there is a store in San Diego called "Dick's Liquor."

Sorry, makes me chuckle every time.

A Chinese restaurant called Foody Goody in Renton, WA. Typical low cost Chinese buffet. Name is good but food is, well, it won't cause your demise.

A local Chinese restaurant near mum and dad's called "Pooh Ping Palace". hmm...

There was a place in Ventura County (either Camarillo, Oxnard or Ventura, my sister would know but I'm too lazy to call her to ask) called Dukes Btich'in Burgers (letters scrambled so as to show up). AWESOME burgers too!!

In town, there is a Yum Yum Good Chinese restaurant.

Our office moved to a small rural crossroads (great place for a software development business), so the general question of the day is 'Which gas station would you like to eat in today?', since there are only a couple of real restaurants within a 10 mile radius.

However, up the road aways is the 'Country Goodies and Oak Furniture' where you can get a peanut butter and jam sandwich for $1.09 (your choice of jam!) or a bologna sandwich for $1.39. I guess that counts as a restaurant. They do also sell oak furniture.

"The Bar F Saloon" somewhere in Wyoming. I sent a picture of their sign to National Lampoon.

From National Lampoon, "Peni's Grocery"

In the Vietnamese section of San Diego you will find "A Dong Restaurant"

Don't order the sausage. :eek:

There used to be a place in Rossville, IN called the Sanitary Lunch .

There was one in Chicago also. And a 'sanitary seafood market'.

Best in PDX
 

My favorite is a Chinese place in Portland just inside Chinatown off of Burnside. It's called Hung Far Low. I even stopped for a pic, figuring that no one would believe me. :D

Off to Bangkok next week, with another visit to this wonderful restaurant planned. My friend will be visiting BKK for the first time, so I hope she will like it.

It is very conveniently located to the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit, which is where we will stay!

I am currently managing a restaurant/tavern known as the 999's (Three Nines Taven). The current owners, in their 44th year of ownership, don't know where the name came from .... they never changed it. Some say the previous owner won the establishment in a card came .... winning hand being 3 nines.

The Hang On Chinese Takeaway in Thatcham, Berks

The new student union bar at Uni was in the process of being renamed and there was a lot of support for renaming it 'The Library'...though some chump decided to name it 'The Brown Bar' :td:

Hung Far Low
 

I was just browsing this thread wondering if someone would beat me to posting that place. I found it and ate there back in the '70's, and it was still around when I was in Portland a couple of years ago. The name struck me as humorous (for a Westerner) then and I still have a business card from them that I took with me for the same reason you took the photo.

Does anyone who understands the language know what the name means?

Surprised this one hasn't been mentioned:

Skinny Dick's Halfway Inn - Fairbanks, AK

That was also the name of the employee cafeteria of WordPerfect, back when it was headquartered in Orem, Utah (prior to its acquisiton by Novell and then Corel).

Back in the 80's there WAS a bar named "The Library" in Tempe, AZ close to the campus of Arizona State University. Never been inside, so I can't say if it actually had anything to read.

Walked by that place last week. Still there. Some of my current customer's employees hang out there when they are in PHX on business.

There used to be a kosher chinese place in LA called Shalom Hunan.

There's also a bar (which became a restaurant - so the name no longer works quite as well) in Santa Monica called Father's Office.

Japanese restaurant in PDX...
Miso Hapi.

Of course there are all those coffee houses with interesting names:

Cuppa Joe, Jolt n' Bolt and Capitol Grounds -- all in DC, of course

Hung Far Low means....
 

Assuming its phonetic Cantonese, which it seems to be, then it could be Red Flower Lounge/Place

There is a restaurant at 2, The Mall in Bristol called 'Omnibus'. Not hilarious, but it takes a while to get the (admittedly feeble) joke.

Among the many Thai restaurants in Newtown, Sydney, there seems to be a contest to use the worst possible pun. Beau Thai, Thai Foon, Old School Thai, Thai Pinn... I believe that somewhere, there is even a 'Thai a Yellow Ribbon'...

Finally, and slightly off topic, a friend, who took a holiday in Bangladesh, returned with a photo of a blackboard advertising a restaurant: "Come and visit our lovely garden, far from the maddening crows!"

And if we're allowed to mention pubs and bars...

One of my favourite images (as rough as the pub is) is a pub in Paisley (in the West of Scotland) called the 'Elbow Room'. They even have an extension called 'More Elbow Room'.

There are then numerous 'Drift Inn' type places. There is a pub on the Grassmarket in Edinburgh called the 'Last Drop'. This name obtains its macabre humour when you realise that it is so called due to the former presence of gallows just outside...

There was a bar in SanFrancisco called 'Club Foot'.

Your signature made that all the better...

I forgot about all the "Thai"-ins. :D
A new restaurant in DC is Thai-tanic.

When I was a kid at the Jersey shore, there was a cafeteria-style restaurant that was part of a laundromat (coin operated washers and dryers to do your own laundry). It was all in one big room and it was called ....
The Washeteria. I used to think that was the coolest name (hey, I was a kid). Still giggle when I think of it.