Akin to Pottery Barn, I think Dress Barn sounds fake. Dress? Barn? Just sounds weird. And “The Container Store.” Do we really need such a specialized store? Doesn’t it sell other things too? I don’t know, never been there. It’s a mystery.
Houlihan’s cracks me up. Some friends and I were looking to get drinks one night, while rising the subway to Atlantic Center. It was raining and I didn’t want to go far.
Me: “Isn’t there a Bennigan’s in Atlantic Center?”
Friend (bitterly): “No, it’s a Houlihan’s. The cut-rate Bennigan’s.”
The way he said it was hilarious. And since then, Houlihan’s does seem like kind of a stupid name.
Not really- just a metric fuck ton of stuff to put other stuff in (or hang it from, or set it on). It’s a blast! I could drop lottery winnings in that damned store…
I only ate at a Houlihan’s once but it struck me as a less cut-rate Bennigan’s: the stuff seemed fresher, tastier, and classier selections, and the decor was definitely classier. And this was in Kissimmee, the home of lowest-common-denomator service. (To provide a point of reference, one time we went to the IHoP near Old Town Kissimmee because it was better than the adjacent all you can eat Breakfast Buffet, where the servers messed up our drink orders (which was about their only job,) and the buffet choices were either completely bland or you could literally feel the salt crystals crunch in your mouth.)
Then again, 1 point of experience of Houlihan’s v. Bennigan’s doesn’t speak for everyone. (Although both Bennigan’s and Chili’s are one step above Applebee’s.)
I think the OP is about names that seem like they can’t be real, or can’t really mean anything–not names that are just silly or annoying. Puns are common, especially with coffee houses. But there’s a difference between that, and names which are virtually meaningless.
Funny story. I had my order delivered to my office (it wasn’t inkjet printer cartridges), but I got confused with paypal and put “office” in the contact name field - I thought it meant just a name for this contact. It was actually the name that appears on the shipping label. So you can see where this is going - last week I came back from lunch to discover my package, opened, sitting on my desk. The office manager had left a post-it note, “I think this is yours”, on it. I wondered why she had opened it until I read the shipping label.
After the funeral of a relative of my wife, I had the pleasure of crossing the street to a fast food joint by the name of “Mejor aqui que al frente” (better off here than accross the street).
There’s a sign in front of a warehouse in Edison, NJ, which says:
One Step Up
Cherry Stix
Extra Touch
It might easily be assumed that the sign refers to 3 separate companies, but there is a logo on the sign made up of an O, a C, and an E.
Without googling, can you guess what the OCE people do?
I still don’t understand this, but there’s a store, in fact two or three stores, in downtown Madrid – and I have the photographs – named NO COMPRE AQUI, VENDEMOS MUY CARO (“Don’t shop here, our prices are really high”).
There’s an accounting firm in Orlando called Wilder Accounting, sure it may be someone’s name but I don’t want my accountant to be a wild and crazy guy!
I only ate at a Houlihan’s once but it struck me as a less cut-rate Bennigan’s: the stuff seemed fresher, tastier, and classier selections, and the decor was definitely classier. And this was in Kissimmee, the home of lowest-common-denomator service. (To provide a point of reference, one time we went to the IHoP near Old Town Kissimmee because it was better than the adjacent all you can eat Breakfast Buffet, where the servers messed up our drink orders (which was about their only job,) and the buffet choices were either completely bland or you could literally feel the salt crystals crunch in your mouth.)