Pumpkins Don’t Have Ankles

On the last night of our family vacation in Hilton Head, we ate at the Grumpy Grouper Grille. We wanted to go just because it was called the Grumpy Grouper Grille. The food was good, too, though in my opinion the mascot wasn’t nearly grumpy enough.

This has gotten me to thinking about other cleverly named restaurants. These include:

• Crazy Crab
• Catch 22  (they serve seafood)
• Dairy Godmother
• Mellow Mushroom (a totally groovy pizza place)
• Brew and Ewe (A personal favorite. It sells coffee and wool products. Get it? Brew and Ewe … like sheep? because they have wool? Well, anyway, I like it a lot.)
• China (a little Chinese take-out place on Wade Hampton Blvd. Actually, the name lacks cleverness, but it’s really fun to say you’re going to China for lunch.)
• Pho’ Noodleville (I thought my friend was pulling my leg when she suggested we go here. I was convinced that couldn’t actually be a real place. But it was, and it was my first taste of Vietnamese food. It was great!)
• FiggyWhigs Cupcakes
• Thai Sky
• West End Chicken & Waffles (they served fried chicken on top of waffles. We tried to go. I was going to write all about it on this very blog! But WEC&W was MIA. Apparently it closed down and left its sign up. Or maybe it never existed in the first place …)

My sisters and my friends and I have had some pretty sweet ideas for restaurant chains ourselves. These include:

The Blue Noodle
This is Amy’s idea for an Italian restaurant. And yes, it would serve blue noodles. With red sauce. And white Parmesan on top. Yum … patriotic!

The Onion Garden
My friend Cajun Mike and I thought of this one. Menu items include:

• Dij’onions (onion rings with Dijon mustard sauce)
• Caj’unions (onion rings with cayenne pepper and other Louisiana spices)
• Cinnam’unions (use your imagination)
• And the ever-popular Onion Milkshake—OK, you can turn your imagination off for this one.

The brilliant secret to the Onion Garden is that the restaurant itself is not the main source of income. All profits are made through the breath mint stand on the way out.

The Tastee Taco
Just imagine that it’s about 2 a.m. in the middle of nowhere. You pull up to a little taco shack with faded yellow stucco and a peeling stripe of aqua paint. The neon “Tastee Taco” sign is flickering, and as you pull your car into park, a small creature—perhaps a possum or an armadillo—runs out of the kitchen. This is the ideal ambiance for the Tastee Taco.

This brings me to the crème de la crème of our restaurant ideas:

Steak & Crackers
Steak & Crackers has been the subject of much discussion between me and my sister Becky. There is much to say about it. Here are some of the highlights:

• It plays only elevator music, performed by a live Elevator Music Orchestra. It’s conducted by a bellhop, and the stage rises several stories and then comes back down as the band plays.
• It will be the only place you can order a porterhouse with a side of Ritz or a filet mignon with graham crackers.

Other menu items include:

• Death By Vanilla, a tastee dessert
• Trucha En La Ducha (literally, “Trout in the Shower”)
• Chicken Chalupa
• Chicken Chalupa with Cheese
• Chicken Chalupa with Cheese and Chocolate
• Chunky Chicken Chalupa with Cheese and Chocolate, and so forth

I know, I know, we really are brilliant. One day we’re going to make a ton of money in the restaurant business, you’ll see. If only we knew how to cook.