We used to have a similar place called “Mac & More”. They had a variety of different sauces and toppings and the like. Alas they did not survive covid.
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A lot of “Food Hall” stalls are single-dish or have a very limited menu. There’s the ramen booth next to the dumpling booth next to the croque monsieur booth next to the taco booth…
Welcome to the Straight Dope, @Sodokufan!
And whaddya know, there’s actually a wiki page for these - uh - specialities:
Sounds like a niche that’s being monetized to me.
j
ETA: there’s a live thread:
- where I learned more about Sloppy Joes than I ever felt the need to know - looks like a loose meat sandwich and a Sloppy Joe are close relatives.
Not a restaurant. A store opened up down the road called Ebisu. I’ve never been in there but I guess they sell the kind of Japanese snacks and food you normally only see at anime conventions. I have a hard time believing this kind of thing could be popular enough to make a sustainable business.
A lot of those store do most of their business on line but also have a store front. They do all of the shipping and receiving in the back.
Spudulike (formerly Spud-U-Like) is, to my surprise, still going - it’s a restaurant chain specialising in baked potatoes (with a variety of toppings).
This Japanese eel house
Mmm, Spoo-doo-lee-kay.
To me, a limited menu is a good thing. There’s a little shop in the next town over that, besides coffee, sells nothing but musubi. It’s freaking fantastic.
Not a restaurant, but franchised freestanding stalls that pop up in popular shopping areas… Magic Corn - they will sell you a cup of steamed sweetcorn kernels, with some sauce on it.
You don’t share with strangers - each table has its own burner. You’re only eating with your own party.
Never heard of that one, but that is my impression of Faneuil Hall in Boston. Looks decent from the outside even if not living up to the hype, glorified food court inside.
Same thing goes for some of the waterfront pier district buildings in San Francisco, but I don’t think they pretend to be anything else.
I think it was the menu expansion into lobster thermidor that did them in. 
There used to be a restaurant here in Chicago, which only did poutine (in various iterations). It only lasted a couple of years.
Exactly. There are a few Melting Pots here in the Chicago area, and they specialize in romantic dinners. Their restaurants (at least, the ones I’ve been to) are set up with high-walled booths, so the setting is very private and intimate, as you often can’t see more than maybe one other table of diners.
We had a place here for a while that did nothing but Belgian style fries, with a variety of toppings. I avoided it at first, because I figured I would like it but it wouldn’t be a healthy option. I was right on both counts, but it didn’t last.
I went to a restaurant in Tokyo that specialized in beef tongue. I think we had the “beef tongue 3 ways” (grilled, in a stew, and some other way that I’m forgetting).
The thought of sharing a “communal” pot with other members of a group, even if I’m related to some of them doesn’t fill me with joy, regardless of whether Fondue Etiquette is followed.
If you’re in Japan, don’t accept an invitation for Shabu Shabu, then.
Perhaps because it is now so ubiquitous, no one has mentioned restaurants specializing in poke. Ten years ago, it didn’t really exist in SoCal, then it started to appear at some Japanese restaurants (especially fast casual Japanese). Now there are probably half a dozen poke-only restaurants within 5 miles of me.
There’s also an empanada-only shop in the South Bay. I’m not sure how common this niche restaurant is. For the uninitiated, an empanada is a filled pastry. mostly savory, from a variety of culturally spanish countries.
I’m thinking their dessert samosas aren’t much different than cannoli shells filled with flavored fillings (although they do look overly sweet for my tastes).
Nah, Melt wasn’t a novelty. They had amazing, creative sandwiches with really great and usually locally-sourced ingredients. And the vibe of the restaurant was very cool. Menus were printed on paper pasted to old album covers and stuff. You could get a Melt logo tattoo and get 25% off for life! The owner/head chef is a vegan and they had really good vegetarian & vegan options.
I think somewhere on the kids menu there was an option for a sandwich that was just bread and cheese, but otherwise Melt sandwiches were a real fun play on “grilled bread with cheese - and a whole lot of other stuff in there too”. They had great fries and special desserts, and seasonal special sandwiches. And they were affordable!
Anyway, there was expansion and then more expansion and then a sharp decline in quality and that was that for Melt.
So, it wasn’t a restaurant like Cane’s that just sells one thing and the novelty wore off. It was a very sad decline of a very good and popular restaurant.
Maybe we all loved it too much and made them expand too far so we could all get our fancy sandwiches. 