Restaurant Names Create Expectations

I want to take a minute to respond to a couple of your thoughts and comments about my post regarding the term “F&B Outlets.”

Words define how we think and perceive something; people think in pictures, and words immediately conjure up mental images. When you call something an “outlet” it removes the experience and emotional sensibilities from the description, and as we are in the business of creating experiences for our guests and employees, the words we use affect the way people react.

There is the famous story about how many names a camel has in English versus in Arabic. For fun take a look at this discussion. The fact is that people emotionally and rationally respond to words, and the nuances of words are enough to be cautionary about what words we use—not only do words have literal meanings, but they have emotional ones too.

This leads me to one of my other favorite topics overlooked by many people: naming restaurants. Sometimes it seems like the default name for many restaurants, particularly in hotels, is the address. For example, calling your restaurant FIFTEEN TEN if it happens to be located at 1510 Main Street. This name gives potential guests no connection or image of what kind of experience they will receive besides giving them the location. A name like this fulfills the requirement of name but leaves everything else up in the air.

Try to do a Rorschach test or ink blot test with words. Let’s talk about barbecue. Do you see the difference between Fette Sau, Blue Smoke and Brother Jimmy’s BBQ? All of them are very good barbecue restaurants in New York City.

Brother Jimmy’s, in fact, has won several awards for its barbecue, but all of the names give you a different sense of the kind of experience. Fette Sau sounds definitely French, and even though you might know that it means fatted pig, you really have to know the restaurant to understand the experience. One thing you would feel for sure was that it was not your usual barbecue joint.

Blue Smoke sounds cool and probably less authentic barbecue with a twist. And Brother Jimmy’s sounds about as authentic and down home as you can get with a bib napkin and messy fingers, and certainly the most casual. In terms of how you would use these restaurants, the name in some ways helps to define their broader use. Brother Jimmy’s may not be the place for a business dinner, whereas the other two could be. As Fette Sau sounds a little pretentious, my apologies to the owners, it also sounds like it could be a great opportunity for a upscale experience. By the way, it is still pretty casual.

If we look at Italian restaurants, let’s take Kuleto’s or Scala’s in San Francisco, which certainly sound authentic and traditional. But if you look at another Italian restaurant named Urbana in Washington, D.C., guests immediately get a different expectation of their Italian experience. I guess all of this is to say that if you are trying to send a strong message about your restaurant then you need to find a name that describes what it is supposed to feel like as well as managing expectations. The best is when the name, décor, pricing, service and experience all line up and support one another.

Words do mean something more than the dictionary relates. Naming restaurants set up expectations that either are enticing, disappointing or exceeded.