Eat’n Park, a fast food chain out of Pittsburgh, began in 1949 as a drive-in. Back then, so the website says, “Park & Eat” signs were everywhere. So the new venture decided to turn the name, and logic itself, upside down. I mean, why would you eat first and then park? Unless you had to yak or something?
I see a lot of businesses named “Standard [name of product or service here]”. Not particularly inspiring, but quite common. The “Standard” name gives off a “We’ve been around since 1952, and we’re not really cutting-edge” vibe.
I’ve noticed that there’s certain business nammes that are common to a region, which seems to make them … well, it seems to make them generic. Buffalo has lots of “Niagara [something]”, “Seneca [something]”, and “Iroquois [something]” businesses. Cleveland is filled with “Fifth Coast [something]”, “North Coast [something]” and “Western Reserve [something]”. In Denver, it’s “Front Range [something]” and “Rocky Mountain [something]”.
One thing very common in Buffalo: businesses are named after the neighborhood or street they were originally on, but when the area turns into a ghetto and they relocate, they keep the same name." Thus, there’s plenty of “Bailey [something’” businesses that are located far from Bailey Avenue.
I know I’m in a redneck part of town when I see lots of businesses named “J&[some other letter]”. It’s always “J” - J&R Excavating, J&B Mini-Storage, J&L Auto Body, J&M Used Tires …
The Slut was featured here in my thread on 7 Unusual Public-Transit Wonders You Should Try in Your Lifetime . 
Did you recognize the Amigone Funeral home I linked to? It’s in Williamsville just a hop away from Main St. (in the Village of Williamsville) and Bailey ave!
A few that I’ve seen:
A small discount store called Dollar Plus ±. Given that the point of a dollar store is that everything costs a dollar, I assume that everything in this store costs more than a dollar, give or take.
In a shopping center not far from where I live is the Cao Dung Beauty Clinic. This is down the street from a restaurant called **Duang Rats **(I kept secretly hoping that the a in the sign would burn out.)
Not a bad name per se, but in a strip mall, I once saw two stores so close together that their signs ran together (both were printed in the big white block letters that were standard for that shopping center). This produced the effect of a single sign proudly declaring I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt Paint and Wallpaper.
In Indianapolis in the '70s (at the north west corner of 10th and Tibbs on the west side to be precise). There was a restaurant called Lazy Mabel’s Tallywhacker. Their burgers were 2 for a dollar but nobody asked what was in them.
Must have been a Thai restaurant. Duangrat is a common girl’s name. But I’d hope someone would have had sense enough to tell her not to write it as two words.
Similarly, a gas station in our town used to advertise its features on the roof overhang: CHICKEN DONUTS DELI. It’s changed hands and been remodeled, so the words are no longer there, but we still call it “the chicken donuts place.”
There is a chain of sushi restaurants in the SF Bay Area called Manpuku. I’m sure “Man-puke-oo” is not an uncommon pronunciation, and puke is not something you’d want associated with your restaurant…
Unfortunately, MEGAFLICKS is out of business and in its place is an Amscot. Boring, but true.
About 50 miles from here is a town called Winter Haven. Their public transportation is the Winter Haven Area Transit system. On the backs of all the buses, in enormous white letters, is painted WHAT. I envision a total “Who’s on first?” sort of thing arising out of taking a daily trip on the WHAT bus.
Roach Realty.
No, I’m not kidding: http://www.downtowngreensboro.com/cooppages/Roachrealty1.htm
There was a huge human resources firm in my hometown named **PMS ** (personnel management systems). This was a major employer in the city. And yes they operated under the acronym and not the full name of the business. About two years into business they changed the name of the firm to PMSI.
There is a chinese restaurant near my house named Fu Kee.
And though it, hopefully, wasn’t on purpose there is a laundry place nearby named You’re Laundromat. That’s right, you are laudromat.
I work for a property management company and one of my favourite bits of correspondence is an owner’s letter that began “To whom it may concern;” and then went on to complain of a cockroach infestation in their apartment. This was replied to with a standard letter explaining that it was the owner’s responsibility to deal with since the problem was limited to their own unit, nicely signed by my boss, “M. Roach.” I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the owner opened that letter.
(My boss actually has a nice ring featuring an actual cockroach preserved in amber. A proud Roach, that one.)
I knew someone that went to work for El Paso Gas. I still giggle like a school girl when I think of that name.
In a shopping plaza a few miles from my house, between Lane Bryant* and Dress Barn Woman*, is a take-out wrap place named Roly Poly.
Amigone Funeral Home in Buffalo: I think it’s pronounced “Ahm-eee-shown”. Joke about the name to an Italian-American, and they’ll wonder “what’s so funny about it?” Same thing with another common Italian family name in Buffalo: Muffaletto.
- For the non-USA-ians on the SDMB, Lane Bryant and Dress Barn Woman are stores catering to “women of size”, to be politically correct.
Hold the special sauce… 
That reminds me, there’s a place in Orlando called Wilder Accounting. Look, you can be as crazy as you want on the weekends but I don’t want you to try out weird legal theories on my tax return!
Blackwater, the very profitable company that supplies private troops to the US State Dept. in Iraq on a no-bid contract, came by its name honestly. :rolleyes: The headquarters and huge training compound, somewhere in the Carolinas, is mostly bog land. If you dig down two or three feet, you get black water.
For reasons I don’t quite understand, at least 80% of the nail shops in the US are owned and/or operated by women from Cambodia. (I’m not making this up.) That explains some the odd nail shop names.
It’s the bottle in Italian. According to Tom & Ray Magliozzi (Car Talk), it came to mean failure because Italian art glass blowers, when a piece didn’t quite work out, would call the piece a bottle (il fiasco,) and they’d sell it cheaply. Flask comes from the same root.
There’s a second hand store nearby, the owners of which decided to get cutesy (uh, kutsey) with the signage. Thus, it says --Kollectables–Konsignment–Kristmas. I like to call it the KKK.
This fat chick gives you special dispensation to say “fat chicks.”