# Was Bennigan's restaurant the first of its kind? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 16, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734 "2012-01-16T22:03:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/21 "2012-01-17T03:39:59Z")
The term you’re looking for is “Fern Bar”. They are characterized by goofy shit on the walls, ferns, and fake tiffany lamps. Wiki states the first one was Henry Africa’s in San Fransisco which started in 1970. > **[Fern bar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern_bar)** > > Fern bar is an American slang term for an upscale or preppy (or yuppie) bar or tavern catering to singles, usually decorated with ferns or other greenery, as well as such decor as fake Tiffany lamps. The phrase came into common regional usage in the late 1970s. > One of the first fern bars was the original T.G.I. Friday's on the corner of 63rd Street and First Avenue in a neighborhood on the Upper East Side of New York City, where many young single adults lived at the time. The founder, Alan Stil... ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/22 "2012-01-17T04:16:34Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The first time I saw this was at a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado in the mid-1970s, though I’m having trouble recalling the name. It was not a Bennigan’s or any of the other names mentioned so far. > > TGIFriday’s is another chain that does it. Dark Horse? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/23 "2012-01-17T04:18:53Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > The term you’re looking for is “Fern Bar”. They are characterized by goofy shit on the walls, ferns, and fake tiffany lamps. Wiki states the first one was Henry Africa’s in San Fransisco which started in 1970. > > [Fern bar - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern_bar) While there is an intersection between “fern bars” and “crap on the wall bars,” they are not necessarily the same. There are plenty of fern bars that attempt to be more tasteful, and lots of crap on the wall bars that cater more to the sports bar crowd than the singles market. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/24 "2012-01-17T04:19:43Z")
As an underage kid in 1964 I walked into Mac’s bar and they had crap on the wall. I also remember seeing crap on the wall at a local Sunoco station. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/25 "2012-01-17T04:22:03Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Dark Horse? Thank you! [That’s it!](http://darkhorsebar.com/) I knew it had “horse” in its name. It immediately became a popular hangout with the college crowd when it opened in 1975. We hadn’t seen anything like it before. ETA: “Fern bar” is a term I also recall hearing for the first time in the mid or late 1970s in Boulder. Fern bars were decidedly more upscale than a place like the Dark Horse, which was a college dive bar. Fern bars featured cool jazz or a piano player; the Dark Horse had loud rock. ---
**Author:** ![dba\_Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c37758/32.png) [@dba\_Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dba_Fred)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/26 "2012-01-17T08:07:53Z")
I started eating at a place that did this in the 50s which we regulars lovingly called “Mom’s.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/27 "2012-01-17T11:40:21Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > As an underage kid in 1964 I walked into Mac’s bar and they had crap on the wall. > > I also remember seeing crap on the wall at a local Sunoco station. Assuming Mac’s was a local joint, I think that’s the whole point of what the chains were trying to establish. Make themselves _look like_ an authentic neighborhood place. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/28 "2012-01-17T19:44:08Z")
I grew up in a coastal town. Seafarer-themed bars & to a lesser degree restaurants had crap on the walls from my earliest recollections (~the early 60s.) These weren’t chains, just Mom & Pop joints of varying degrees of nautical authenticity. Some joints had real fishermen for customers, others had yachtsmen or wannabe yachtsmen. Or just suburban folks who wanted to eat a fish. The first I recall of “crap on the wall” restaurants outside of crab pots, manila fishnets, & brass navigation lanterns was the late 60s. I’m gonna agree with \*\*Southern Yankee \*\*just above that eccentric Mom & Pops had been plastering _random locally-available kitsch_ on their walls since the early 1900s. The regional & soon-to-be national chains ran with that ball as they exploded along with suburbia in the 60s. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/29 "2012-01-17T19:48:03Z")
Tracer Vic’s in New York was a crap-on-the-wall joint as far back as the 1930s: [http://www.tradervics.com/legacy/legacy.html](http://www.tradervics.com/legacy/legacy.html) ---
**Author:** ![Disheavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/30 "2012-01-17T19:51:01Z")
Since the date has been pushed to well before my time, I am going to chime in with what I believe to be another possibility. Triple XXX (burgers and root beer). It is certainly a nearly dead chain but it was bigger at an earlier point and I don’t remember their ever not having crap on the walls. So could a “more experienced” doper verify how long they have been putting stuff on their walls? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/31 "2012-01-17T20:15:15Z")
Ruby Tuesday’s started in 1972 and was one of the early adopters of the look. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734/32 "2012-01-17T20:24:06Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Tracer Vic’s in New York was a crap-on-the-wall joint as far back as the 1930s: > > [http://www.tradervics.com/legacy/legacy.html](http://www.tradervics.com/legacy/legacy.html) Ooops, I mean San Francisco–I remember the NY one. But that pushes “crap-on-the-wall” at \*least \*back to the 1930s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bennigans-restaurant-the-first-of-its-kind/609734.md?page=1)