Biscuitry.
I came to suggest Sunny Side Up.
I second Leaffan’s The Biscuit Barn. Easy to remember, homey, and what the business is built around. They’ll “get it” that you serve other things.
What do you know about Ma that the rest of us don’t?
I like the ‘Ma’s’ angle, but Ma’s Biscuits is too plain and not memorable enough.
How about Ma’s Wicked Biscuits?
Memorable, not too cutesy/punny, has a good run of hard consonants.
mmm
Yeah, as we currently envision it, the restaurant won’t be a table service affair - counter service and carry-out only, in all likelihood. While I like the idea of French press coffee and stuff, that’s not part of our mission. But we’ll have good coffee (already sourcing that from a local roaster,) and iced tea - sweet and unsweetened - and Dewey is right. If we’re already set up to brew iced tea, we can easily brew hot tea - we just need a good kettle or an instant hot water source. (Not the same blend of tea, though. This is one area where we don’t have to look for a good source. Luzianne is where it’s at for iced tea!)
I like so many of the restaurant name suggestions - I might have to put together a poll to figure out the top two or three most popular, and then present the best to Ma for final approval.
How about “The man eating biscuit” and have a pic of a man eating a biscuit. In Wisconsin years ago my mother had a turkey themed restaurant called “The Man Eating Turkey” with a pic of a man eating a turkey drum stick!
Yeah, but free refills! :smack:
Yep, we’ll probably charge more than McDonald’s for coffee - good coffee costs more than Maxwell House - but there will be a refill station. And a discount for bringing a re-usable mug - maybe selling one with our name on it (whatever that turns out to be!) and charging a reduced price for coffee in that mug. Even though we’ll be using disposable wares for our carry-out service, we want to be as earth-friendly as possible.
And grits. Restaurants don’t make good grits, and then poor tourists and transplants eat lousy grits at the Waffle House or something, and think that grits are terrible. In reality, a good bowl of cheese grits is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. We will either make good grits, or we won’t serve grits. Full stop.
Well, you didn’t like my last suggestion of leather-masked biscuit servers, but I’ll try again.
Kiss My Grits!
You Bet Your Biscuits!
I feel strongly that more punctuation marks should be used in business names.
There’s another issue that seems vital: speed of service. And having enough staff to provide it.
People won’t mind waiting in line behind 3 others. But nobody wants to wait in line behind 6 or 8 people. Students may be more flexible than people on their way to work, but they still have deadlines, and have to run to class after sleeping too late. During the morning rush,if you can’t serve everybody as quickly as they want, they won’t be in the mood to come back later at more quiet hours, either.
If you’ve been in the business all your life, you know this, of course.
But it seems to me that you may need more than one person on the register and one person behind the counter.
There may only be, say, two 20-minute periods of rush hour. But if somebody opens the door , sees a long line, and then leaves immediately because he doesnt have time to wait,—he may never come back. Even if the food is great.
For those 20-minute rushes, you’re going to need a second cash register. If one stupid customer tries to pay with an expired credit card that creates an error message, and then has to spend 90 seconds fumbling around in his pockets trying to find cash, you’ll be wasting several valuable minutes, and created pissed-off customers who are in line behind him.
And you’ll need enough staff behind the counter so that if somebody has to run to the storeroom in the back to bring out more plastic cups, your customers won’t be standing around getting irritated and worrying that they’ll be late to work (or class).
Dude. You call it biscuit anything and you’ve pigeonholed yourself to biscuits forever.
Nadine’s. Just call it Nadine’s and sell great biscuits. Or soup. Whatever. 
This. We’re starved for ma&pa restaurants that can knock out the basics well. To this day I miss the one at my college. They served what is now called an egg McMuffin but it was soooooooo good. Big slab of Canadian bacon with a fried egg/cheese on a toasted (are you listening McD’s) English Muffin. Coffee that actually tasted like coffee. Fried potatoes.
I’d call it Blistbe’s. If anybody asked about the name tell them it’s Breakfast Like it’s Suppose to Be.
How about calling it “Biscuits and More” ?
Have a cutesy menu, labelled “Biscuits” on one side, and “More” on the other.
What’s your mum’s first name?
I gave the thread a quick once over, but may have missed seeing it… The Biscuit Joint?
Bingo!
The University of Pittsburgh had (has?) The Original Hotdog Shop. Everyone called it The Dirty O.
Heh. Wiki cite:
That wouldn’t work for multiple reasons. First, you typically brew sweet tea from giant tea bags that make very mediocre hot tea.
Second, you don’t just keep brewed hot tea sitting around ready to be poured.
Third, it would be a colossal waste of time to put any effort into making and serving hot tea in Statesboro.
Since no one else seems to have mentioned it, before you settle on any name, have a lawyer check and make sure your preferred choice doesn’t conflict with any other businesses registered in your state, and that it’s also clear of trademark conflicts. You don’t need legal problems while you’re starting out.
I think Wake Up Mama’s is great.