A cause of affliction or calamity

[gordonzola]

I woke up this morning with a word in my head. That word is "scourge" and my favorite definition of it is the title of this entry. I began reflecting on what scourges have affected my life. It is with that in mind that I’ve decided to do a post on one of the worst scourges for any "up and coming" urban neighborhood: theme restaurants.

Now, I’m not talking about big chains or places like Hooters or anything. I mean hip, trendy restaurants that almost by definition last no more than a few months or a year, but can change a street dramatically by making it a wacky destination for people from outside the neighborhood. I’m not even trying to make a big point about gentrification here. It’s usually well on its way by the time a themed business wants to open up. There’s just something unsettling about a place of business that makes the locals shake their heads in wonder, but draws, or attempts to draw, fancy people dismayed at the lack of valet parking at the same time they’re thrilled at the "danger" of walking past the urban decay with their dates.*

When I lived at Valencia and 16th in the House of Failure, that area was ground zero for theme restaurants. I actually got into my first internet flame war on the SF Bay Guardian site about Take Orders a military-themed restaurant that replaced Aunt Mary’s my favorite diner in the whole Bay Area. I try so hard to not be dogmatic, but a military-themed restaurant is just wrong. Unless of course they’re going to go all the way and do it institutional cafeteria-style or just serve everyone those GI "Meals Ready to Eat". And they could play bloody war footage or clips from war movies on big screen TVs too.

But I digress.

My first exposure to theme-businesses was military one also. When I lived in an upstate NY college town, someone opened a frat bar called the Bomb Shelter in the locals’ part of town. The painted it camouflage and had waitress in short, breast-displaying camo outfits. Late one night jactitation and I were awakened by a banging on our window. After the obligatory what-the-fuck?s, I opened the shade to see a huge, burning American flag. Two giddy friends were waving it and nearly setting Jacco’s apartment on fire. After spray-painting the Bomb Shelter with the slogan "War is not a happy hour!", they stole the bar’s huge flag and were destroying the evidence.

But the Valencia and 16th restaurant that really made the whole concept seem hateful was when Moptops opened beneath my beloved and behated House of Failure. Thankfully I had moved out a few months previously when the retail space had been a techno-ish sushi "club", so I got to witness Moptops from afar. And really, the concept is kind of amusing when you think about it. A Mersey Beat-themed oyster bar? I know when I wanna eat some bivalves, I think of the fresh, clean waters of Liverpool, England. Yum.

It was run by a Japanese junkie with a Beatles haircut who eventually got caught by health inspectors shooting up in the kitchen. Double yum.

The theme restaurant scourge seems unstoppable for awhile. So much so, that jactitation and I spent hours at bars dreaming up new theme restaurants that we could open and make huge profits only to close them down a year later and open a new one. You gotta keep it fresh, you know. We discovered that every institutional setting has potential.

My favorites?**

The Hospital White and sterile and staffed by hot nurses and doctors.*** Customers lie in beds. TVs are mounted on the walls and ceilings showing cool music videos. Walkers would be issued if one needs to use the restroom. At the bar, drinks are served via IV.

The Library Books on all the tables. Main counter looking like a reference desk. Service staff dressed in modified librarian drag: glasses and sensible clothes modified with slit skirts and important cleavage cuts. Meals would be served in backpacks and you have to sneak your food while the "librarians" aren’t looking.

High School Cafeteria style. No wait people, but staff is hired to act like Jocks, Nerds, Drama Kids, and Stoners. You get your food and try to find an open seat while different cliques belittle you based on your appearance. One randomly timed food fight per night, but spitwads can be fired at anytime. Possible crossover with the splosh (not work-safe) crowd.

But really, I just don’t have the drive to open a horrible restaurant for horrible people. If anyone wants to open any of these places, you have my blessing. 5% each off the top for Jacco and myself would just be common courtesy though.



*One of my favorite, now closed, restaurants was the Korean Cabin on Mission and 18th. It was reviewed positively in the Chronicle but the reviewer actually said something to the effect of, "There’s no parking, so hold your briefcases and handbags tight on your way to the restaurant."

**Please feel free to post your own themes as comments. It’s really fun once you get going.

***Sexist yes. But the theme restaurant relies on dominant cultural references if it is to succeed. This whole exercise was a cynical ploy to fund the revolution. Or at least to let me escape working for a living.

Comments

[myasma.livejournal.com]

There was a small blurb on NPR this morning about a hotel with a library theme. All the rooms are numbered using the Dewey Decimal system. Apparently someone owns the DDS, and charges libraries a fee each year to use it. The owner is suing the hotel.

[fluxions.livejournal.com]

The Library Hotel is so fancy. I had this fantasy of staying there for my honeymoon. If I ever had one. Or to celebrate graduating from library school.

Oh yeah, food is allowed in most (all?) California public libraries now.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I'm actually in favor of theme hotels. like the one they build out of ice every year. and the one near SLO with all the crazy rooms. I stayed in the Jungle Room once.

[redgrrl.livejournal.com]

The Library hotel in NYC is what the above person is referring to. Swank place -- I'd love to stay there.

Anyway, I was really commenting to find out what upstate NY college town you lived in. I live and work in such a town (Fredonia). In fact, you could say there's quite a SCOURGE of them in upstate NY! :)

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I lived in Ithaca. But I haven't lived there since 1989. which college is in Fredonia, I can't remember.

my theme restaurants

[fattest.livejournal.com]

Crumb: Waitresses all have huge tits and asses. Host is Mr. Natural, going from table to table offering advice and dope to customers. Live band fronted by Fritz the cat. Staff are sexually inappropriate with customers. Customers are mostly drooling men, who are also sexually inappropriate with staff.

Silicon Valley: Tables are romatically privatized in gray, carpeted cubicles. Flickering fluorescent lighting. No waitstaff. Orders are placed by computer, on a cart at the side of each table. Bottled water for all. Loaded squirt guns, frisbees, and hackysacks at each table. Jimi Hendrix in surround sound.

Ooo, there are more on the horizon, but I don't have all day, you know! Feel free to improve on these.

Re: my theme restaurants

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

oooh, good suggestions. I love Silicone Valley for the punish-the-patrons aesthetic.

Re: my theme restaurants

[felicks.livejournal.com]

so funny!

amatoxic and i just went to see American Splendor this weekend. i really liked it - especially how Crumb was presented as such an asshole.

[walktheplank.livejournal.com]

Welcome back! :)

My neighborhood is right on the cusp of moving into genuine theme bar territory. Although theme bars don't seem to do well, so maybe we're safe.

To whit:

1. The long-running (and thoroughly awful) vegetarian restaurant on Lyndale has been replaced by a sports bar called "Bulldog" that's modeled after another bar in Amsterdam.

2. A trendy "pan-Asian" restaurant called "AZIA" has been getting lots of attention. This one worries me. It's a lot closer to my apartment.

My own suggestion:

1. I've always dreamed of opening a theme bar called "The Four Stomachs of Cow." The facade would be made to look like a giant holstein cow, and fitted with a set of one-way doors. Patrons would be forced to go through all four chambers, or "stomachs", of the cow -each one smaller than the last.

The fourth and final room would be a milk bar containing nothing but a counter, a single chair or stool, and the bartender. To exit the bar, patrons would have to crawl out through a tube lined with squishy silicone, or plastic, to be spat out onto the street from a giant udder / birth canal.

Mind you, I cooked up this idea back in 1994,* so this was pre-Matthew Barney.
___

* Yes, I was completely sober at the time.

[fluxions.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Matthew Barney, have you seen the Cremaster Cycle? I saw parts of it, but not the whole thing in one sitting. I don't know where to find it in the bay area.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who Matthew Barney is. I guess I'll google him when I get back home unless you want to provide a link.

[goodbadgirl.livejournal.com]

First, I would like to apply for a job at Crumb. If they're hiring.

Second:

The Welfare Office

All patrons will fill out a fun survey when they arrive. Questions would include:

How many babies without fathers do you have?

Please list any/all mental illnesses.

Do you suffer from PTSD related to serving in an American war in the past 50 years?

etc.

Based on their answers the custies will get a certain number of food stamps to "buy" their dinner.

"Yes, I'd like to start with the government cheese plate...."

There could also be "theme" nights like Spanish Speaking Thursdays - everyone pretending to be illegally in the country gets a discounted Margaritta.

And of course, a WIC room for the kids.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

oh yeah! Ha, did you ever see the movie "Eat the Rich"? your suggestion reminded me of that for some reason.

Junkies a Go-Go

[freshwater-pr0n.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, I was trying to decide whether to stay in SF or flee to Austin. An incident in front of the techno-sushi restaurant helped to push me in the right direction.

I was walking down 16th St past Techno-Sushi, and three sorority girls offered me their leftovers. I didn't even bother to answer them. As I walked away, one of them said to the other, "Well, you try to help, and this is what you get." What the fuck??

The next day, I booked a flight to Austin to look for a house.

Re: Junkies a Go-Go

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

see, it's the agressive panhandlers like you that were ruining san francisco. ;)

we would sometimes turn up punk rock as loud as possible, put the speakers face down on the floor, and leave the house for hours when techno sushi drove us nuts.

[vestalvixen.livejournal.com]

They beat me to the library hotel comment! But what your other followers didn't tell you is that the books in the rooms as the hotel are set up according to the Dewey Decimal System. I like saying that: Dewey Decimal System.

[fluxions.livejournal.com]

Very cool, but I prefer the LC classification system myself.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I cannot take credit for these -- I think they were both cooked up by my friend Aaron, who has many, many more up his sleeve that I cannot remember now. They're not *exactly* theme restaurants in the same sense that all those SOMA places are/were (a beauty shop! An airplane cabin!), but I like them anyway.

1) The restaurant where the floor is so clean you can eat off it -- and you do.

2) The All Liquid restaurant. Again, no waiters, only clear piping and spigots at your table. Bill is calculated by meter.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

we can make millions if we get capital for a building and change the theme every 6 months. Let's put it in Pacific Heights!

[anarqueso.livejournal.com]

Co-op Cafe You are seated in an ill-formed circle, including a few people cross-legged on the floor, massaging each other. Your menu is an agenda with announcements, clarifying questions, and proposals. The group has to achieve consensus about what to eat and how to share it. When you decide what you want, elect someone to perform the task of ordering. Then the waitstaff tells you to make yourself at home in the kitchen and be sure to use a calculator when you tally your check, because large groups make for bad math.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

what about all the group processing when the meal doesn't work out exactly as predicted? will there be a conflict resolution team on hand?

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Fast? It was there at least two years! But Gordonzola's story isn't exactly clear: Giladon went out of business (or into bigger business, from what I heard) and then Moptops moved in with their Union Jacks (which I found the most offensive, and they should be glad I'd moved out by then for the sake of their plate glass windows).

We had a great idea for driving Giladon out, though. Once when we finished cleaning a fish, we put the head in a jar of canola oil and put it on the roof. The idea was to create huile des poissons mortes (i.e., Stick-U-Out-Fast) and go trail some into their wood surfaces. Who wants to eat raw fish when you can smell that?

But then the landlord found the makeshift ladder we'd nailed into the wall to give us access (for which Sarah Jacobs was very grateful, but that's another story) and tore it out. The jar may be, for all I know, still in waiting nine years later.

[confabulator.livejournal.com]

Not surprisingly I'm sure, theme restaurants are such a major Las Vegas scourge that they're often given their own category in restaurant reviews for those itching to "dine among the memorabilia". Hmmm...perhaps offers new insight to the marketed notion that "what you do in Vegas stays in Vegas"?

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

"what you do in the neighborhood you don't live in, stays in that neighborhood"

[kest]

A friend of mine told me about his family's plans to name their new Manhattan bar 'Anatomy'. I managed to avoid mentioning Something Positive.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

wow, I didn't realize how unoriginal my entry was.

food in libraries

[sararyan.livejournal.com]

sorry i have no theme ideas, but i can shed some light on the food in libraries issue. part of it is definitely related to the fact that libraries are now being perceived as 'competitors' with the big bookstore chains -- having comfy furniture and allowing food and drink become more important when that's the model you're working with. if that seems bizarre, ask any clerk in a big bookstore how often customers want/try to use the store as a library.

MRE's

[queen-beeanna.livejournal.com]

"... or just serve everyone those GI "Meals Ready to Eat".

You know I have 6 of those puppies stored for when society collapses and grocery stores run dry....
And no I did not buy them from a surplus store. I dated an Army Ranger and made him give me them.

Re: MRE's

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Will you be ready when the Bad Times come? Queen Beanna will...

mop-tops was bad...

[ilipodscrill.livejournal.com]

but the theme restaurant that's still around that really irks me is foreign cinema. mostly for the part of mission st. they put it on, but there are other reasons to hate it. oh, the cafeteria theme was done in chelsea(NYC) colleen went there while we were in new york. and it was just on sex & the city, so it can't be THAT new.

Oh, so many topics!

[kaos-kelly.livejournal.com]

1) I grew up in Rochester, schooled in Oswego and lived in Saranac Lake. Upstate NY sucks/rules/sucks.

2) I want to work at Crumb too. I would be able to eat all I want and develop "fahn big laygs" and eventually take enough meletonin to become Angelfood McSpade. Watch out!

3)Restaurant called Government Office. You would want to go but the wait would be months and months, if you got in at all. Big donations put you at the head of the line. You'd have to wear dumpy grey suits and American-flag-color ties. Women get to wear fire-engine red polyester suits, maybe with shoulder pads. Once in, you fill out a procurement form, wait forever again and finally eat lousy warmed over chicken dinners with wilted vegetables. Some idiot comes over to recruit you for a donation to a corrupt campaign, which is mandatory to give to. When you leave, you get a cheesy certificate that says what a great American you are in a plastic faux wood frame.

Re: Oh, so many topics!

[amarama.livejournal.com]

Hey, I was born in Saranac Lake and grew up in Chateaugay, which is a town of 400 ten miles east of Malone. Where I'm from I call "Northern NY" instead of upstate, because there's really no reference to NYC. Poughkeepsie and Plattsburgh both being called "upstate" never did sit right with me.

[psoup.livejournal.com]

Nikki and I had this conversation when we were driving past Hooters in Binghamton.
She was telling me about a twelve year old in her class that wanted to go to Hooters for his next birthday (too old for Chuck E Cheese I suppose).
So, we decided we would open up an theme restaurant with all large male waiters in saggy pants (as opposed to the cleavage on parade @ Hooters) and call it....
Assy McCracken's.
Nik's idea.

My theme restaurant is a play on the chains TGIF's, Tomorrow's, Ruby Tuesday, Etc.
Mine would be Shitty Mondays.
The waitstaff would not be required to wear a minimum amount of flare.


I got to tell you this, Gordonzola - Nik and Gab were smacking each other around the other night, while we three were playing Sorry! Nikki whined and relented as she could take no more abuse. Gab said,"Geez, what hole did you crawl out of?"
Nik points to me and says, "Hers!"
We all had a hearty laugh.

I hope your wrist is feeling better.
Weird, this growing old shit. Can't abuse our bodies like we used to.
I feel relatively young, then someone I work with, or one of their friends says, "So, I was 10 years old when you got married?"
"Yes, I was a child bride," I reply.

One of the preschool teachers (a guy) asked me, "So when does your daughter(Gab)turn 18?"
Ew!
He's only 6 years older than her.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Assy McCrackin's eh?

you've got the smartest kids in the world. all they need now is venture capital.

oh, and a late happy birthday! hope you had fun.

Mental hospital theme resturant

[tristn.livejournal.com]

There could be a marin general hospital unit A and B theme. This would consist of all the walls being painted a "soothing" pastel color. The costomers could be assigned mental illnesses based on what ever political or personality characteristic that the people that they came with decided they didn't like about them. In unit A the costomers would be given forms to fill out where all of the food is listed for every meal and they would have to circle with a pencil what they wanted to order. The food is actually not too bad and sometimes you can even get broiled salmon with a wild rice pilaf. You can also order more than one desert per meal. You can also trade with you fellow patients food you don't want but they do. Annoyingly though if you have food allergies you would be required to wear a hospital band that states what your food allergies are but the food you order will still consist at least partly of what you are allergic to. It will also most likely contain MSG and there's no way it will be organic. If a costumer really is getting into their role as a patient and they are to incapacitated to fill out the menu/form one of the nurses/actors/servers would fill it out for them. If they are really poor and don't have any insurance they would only be allowed to stay in unit B for a little while because it is funded by the county not the state and the county. In there their food choices would be limited to cheap frozen t.v. dinners which they would be very thankful for because it's likely that they were just living on the streets before they came to the hospital. There would be actors playing nurses walking around with med carts with psych meds in little paper cups which are really just pez candy. If a costomer refused to take there psych meds and they were getting really out of control they would be pined down by five actors playing nurses and the "nurses" would pretend to inject the "patient" with either just some haldol or maybe some haldol and a big B vitamin shot. Every one would ask each other what they were "in" for and start telling each other elaborate stories of their latest freak out. It could be a story about them speeding across the golden gate at 100 miles and hour swerving through traffic. Maybe it’s a story about a house wife going nuts from lack of any real goals and aspirations in her life for herself and not her kids. Every one would sit at different tables according to wellness/ability to function level. The maniacs would tend to stick with the other maniacs. The costomers would have to vote as a group on which video to watch that everyone had already seen before. The doors to the outside would all be locked and you would have to wait for the doctor/actor to give you permission to leave because you are well for the meantime according to him or her and also because you have run out of insurance money ie money to pay for food. There would be tons of free gram crackers and peanut butter and jelly to eat when ever you want as well as free coffee and orange juice out of a fountain. A lot of the people you meet there would all seam really fun and interesting when you are locked up together and you tend to bond over your common repression but when you try to maintain friendships on the outside they all seam to forget that it was just a mental hospital theme restaurant and they keep playing their roles and eating too many pez candies while you go back to acting normal and getting on with your life.