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Nothing in the restaurant business could be more important. It must be clear, clean, focused, representative, and easy to pronounce.
We speak, of course, of a restaurant's name.
Restaurant gurus tell prospective owners to spend days, if not weeks, playing the name game. Your name is the first impression, it sets the tone. It's a capsule representation, a restaurant's (literal) signature.
Using a personal name can be perfectly fine (O.T. Hodge Chili Parlor), or comically problematic (Grone's Cafeteria, Skeeter's Eatery). A good name can be fun (Goody Goody Diner), or whimsical (First Federal Frank and Crust was located in a former bank in Clayton), or thematic (94th Areo Squadron, Curry in a Hurry). Names like Cafe Pintxos and Pan D'Olive, on the other hand, are asking to be butchered.
Confusion is the enemy here. In 2011, I reported that Taste, Wood-Fired Fare changed its name to twinOak, Wood-Fired Fare (right), several weeks after the place opened. My comment at the time was "It didn't matter how the fare was fired, there was already a restaurant here named Taste," referring to Gerard Craft's nationally-famed eatery in the CWE. In the end, twinOak was the more logical name, as pizza, sandwiches, and entrees are cooked in a 900-degree, oak-wood fired oven.
Yesterday, Ligaya Figueras reported that a new restaurant named The Choice opened at 3265 S. Jefferson (formerly the original Richard Perry Restaurant), one definite article away from a restaurant simply named Choice (left), open in Clayton since August. Choice is an offshoot of Blackberry Catering (a provider of affordable organic meal options to 3000 local school children), and offers diners an option of organic or non-organic fare.
At The Choice, which opened two weeks ago, diners have the option of a buffet downstairs or a la carte fare upstairs, in a comfy-cozy bar replete with grand piano, which means live jazz and blues on weekends. Bottom line: Choice is a confusing name for any place serving food, made only more so when one must choose between two of them.
Then there's Affton, where the situation has become so silly I don't know whether to laugh or scream.
According to SLM's monthly restaurant recap, Affton Breakfast and Dinner opened at 9416 Gravois (right), serving lunch, dinner, and breakfast all day long. Yesterday, Sheri Gassaway reported for the Mehlville-Oakville Patch that Affton Diner is now open at 10020 Gravois, a mile-plus away. The Patch quoted the Diner's owner, Jonathan Ika, saying he "had no idea the other eatery opened with a name similar to his business." To compound the issue (or could it be karma?), Ika said in the article that Affton Breakfast and Burgers is negotiating to open at 10024 Gravois, immediately to the west of his place. No word whether that owner has bothered to look next door, or a little further east.
Then there's the Affton Cafe Sports Grill & Bar at 8713 Gravois... C'mon, Affton. Throw us a bone, give us a real name...like Jimmy & Andy's...or O B Clark's...or Scrappy's Place.
(For a fun look at local restaurant names, see this oldie-but-a-goodie post, "Local Restaurant Names and Their Mispronunciations." Think you know how to pronounce Acero? You're wrong.)
