In Portland, there’s a chop suey restaurant called Hung Far Low. AudreyK offers photographic proof on her Portland Dopefest page.
In Indy, there are Chinese take-out joints called Ho Lee Chow and Wok This Way. Here, there’s the Fox Radiator Shop, billed as The Best Place In Town To Take A Leak.
Should you meet your final reward in Troy, NY, your remains might be handled by the Bizzarro Funeral Home.
There is a Chinese restaurant in Norfolk (I believe) which has been out of business for years, called Chinky Chickies.
Each time I travel to Virginia Beach I drive by and wonder why the sign is still there.
There was a hair salon here 15 years ago or so named “Bushwackers and Warpaints”. It was insanely popular with the teenagers.
In San Jose, California, out by the airport is a large store with a big sign on top that says “New Dick’s.”
I’ve never had the guts to see what they sell…
Of course, everybody knows about the Amigone Funeral Home chain in Buffalo. (It’s pronounced “ahm-uh-JEE-ohn”)
In Las Cruces, New Mexico, there is a gas station chain called BAR-F. The locals don’t get it. When you point out the sign and say “look, it says ‘barf!’”, they usually respond with a bored “oh … I never saw it that way before.”
Many US cities have independently owned Mexican restaurants named Chilito’s. In some parts of Mexico, the word could be translated as “small penis.”
We have a chain here called “Wok On Inn”, I used to get my hair cut at “Chop”, and there is a service station chain called “Bogas”. The stuff that fuels the car is called petrol here, not gas, so every time I see Bogas I think Bogus.
Needless to say, i haven’t bought fuel there.
A hair salon by me is called “L’Aryola” which isn’t too funny until you pronounce it in your head.
I don’t see how the owner could not have made the connection, but I also don’t see how they COULD have, and still gone through with it.
There’s a fast food shop in Dublin called “Gobble and Go”. Whenever I go past it I imagine a line of gentlemen standing at the register waiting to be fellated. (Muffled “do you want to supersize that?”).
Here we go again, I’m discovering that the most fanciful or ignorance based business names seem to be in the motorcycle delivery (AKA Moto boy), janitorial and security areas, but I have yet to see sections where all the garage door and auto mechanics are listed, lets see…
Cleaning services:
A house clean (see, this is a classic case of somebody trying to make their business name seem real chique while having no idea how the language works)
Clean Work (cute huh)
Alpha San Ear (I don’t know either)
Dream Wash (I’m thinking, a tub full of naked soapy women all ready to wash me! That would be MY dream wash anyway.)
Groupo Del Shady (the shady group)
Serve Limp
Top Limp (Limpar is the verb to clean in Portuguese BTW)
(I cant seem to find Wang Limp in here, but it wouldn’t surprise me)
Security firms:
Top Gun (I’m not joking here, I wonder if they are)
Grabber (and that’s what they do)
Sammy Security (a name you can trust)
ASS (American systems segurança)
Rooligans (Keep in mind that the letter R is pronounced with the H sound)
That’s it for now, will see more later but now I actually have to work.
My local mall is called The Mall.
I can’t think of any around here, but when I lived in baltimore there was a fast food place called Waverly Crabs. This was made particularly funny since a girl I knew who lived in waverly said she HAD crabs.
There must be loads for NY, considering I lived in Flushing which in itself is a funny name, but I can’t think of any.
‘Dr. Beaks’s Good Chicken’.
OK - there are a couple of bars with unique names around here
The Club Soda (the family that runs it has a last name of “Soda”)
The Dew Drop Inne (Honest to God, I’m not making this one up)
Both are dives in towns so small they share the town drunk.
I forgot to mention, a few weeks ago some friends of mine were in town and called to ask if I wanted to go out for Korean barbecue.
Actually, they called and asked if I wanted Joung Kak for dinner.
(Say it out loud.)
F-Mart advertises the best hot dogs in town.
Another chinese place - The Golden Potato
In London I was amused to find that both “Frognel” and “Cockfosters” are stops on the Underground (and they are brilliantly made fun of in Dave Barry’s piece entitled, “Blimey! Frognel Cockfosters!”)
I wonder what Chinese restaurant names are like in other countries. I the US, most of them follow a standard formula where two words are chosen from a standard list of about twenty or so. The places with names like “Hung Far Lo”, “Suk Mi Dik”, “Ho Lee Fuk” and “Fuk Yu Tu” are the exceptions; most have names like “China Dragon”, “Lucky Panda”, “Happy Taste” and “Jade Gardens”.
In the 1920s and 1930s, didn’t there used to be a lot of restaurants with names including the words “sanitary” and “hygenic?”
In small towns, where business names including initials are very common, it’s not unusual to see places with names like “PMS Muffler,” “B&M Towing,” “F n’ A Auto Repair” and so on.
I’m fsacinated with the elaborate names that tiny storefront churches often have. The Full Holy Gospel Tabernacle Cathedral of the Blessed Anointed One could be in an old shoe repair shop.
I forgot the religous business names often seen in the Southern US. You know, “Jesus is Lord Wrecking and Towing”, “The Bible is the Word of God Dry Cleaning”, “Deuteronomy 23:1 Pizzeria”, and so on.
Wakefield, MA… S&M Liquors
Salem, MA… Bunghole Liquors
-Rav