So here I am, writing my stories and thinking I have a good job when I find out that there is a woman who has spent part of her career COLLECTING PUNNY RESTAURANT NAMES. Lynn Westney, a reference librarian at the University of Illinois in Chicago, recently published a paper entitled, "Dew Drop Inn and Lettuce Entertain You: Onomastic Sobriquets in the Food and Beverage Industry," in which she collected over 200 pun-based restaurant names, including Seoul Food, Grounds for Divorce, and Boston Sea Party. Westney's home city of Chicago, which is known for both its food and comedy scenes, was especially well-represented in the paper, featuring the hot-dog shacks Al's Fun in a Bun, Dog Day Afternoon, and Relish the Thought.

Everybody knows that puns are groaners though, so maybe we should turn to a real comedian to open a restaurant. Like, you know, Jeff Foxworthy. The comedian famous for "You Might Be a Redneck" jokes and hosting the somewhat more depressing Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? has plans to open a new restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama. According to Jeff Elkington, CEO of the firm that owns The Forge, the district where Foxworthy intends to open his restaurant, it will be "a family restaurant focused on Southern cooking." Elkington also claims that this is Foxworthy's first restaurant venture, but in 1998, Foxworthy opened the since-failed Jeff Foxworthy's Backyard BBQ in Kissimee, Florida.The restaurant helped spawn a line of Jeff Foxworthy Backyard BBQ sauces, which even back in 2001 prompted USA Today columnist Whitney Matheson to state, "You might be a redneck if you use this sauce. Or you might just be someone who still thinks it's 1993."

So maybe comedians (or at least their families) should stick to home cooking. Thus we come (once again) to the Jessica Seinfeld kerfuffle. Jessica (Jerry Seinfeld's wife) was sued last year by Missy Chaise Lapine, who claimed that Seinfeld got the idea for her cookbook Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food from Missy's book The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals. Last Tuesday, the plot thickened when Lapine filed papers in court stating that she was offended by a joke Jerry Seinfeld made on late-night TV last year, a joke that had nothing to do with Lapine. Wait, what? That's right: The joke had nothing to do with Lapine, food, or writing. Rather, the joke was about how assassins have three names (such as Mark David Chapman).  Here's a direct quote from the AP article: "Lapine said she 'never felt so frightened and vulnerable' as when her daughter came home from school 'and asked, 'Mom, what is an assassin?''" Somehow Lapine thought this was a good thing to bring to court instead of, say, just explaining to her child what an assassin is and moving on with her life.

Oh wait! I've got it. Assassinfrass Cafe. Now that is a great name for a restaurant.

Meg Favreau is a writer and comedian living in Philadelphia. She blogs at ihearyoulikestories.com.

 

"Wok on Inn Noodle Bar" photo from Malcolm Tredinnick via Flickr (Creative Commons); "Thaitanic" photo from eviltwin via Flickr (Creative Commons); home page photo from merfam via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Week in Food" photograph from Corbis, "Plate" photograph from FoodCollection/Getty Images.