All week, Eater has been running Name Of Groans, a bracket to determine the worst restaurant name in America. They first took suggestions from readers on names, then divided them into four brackets that squared off throughout the week, leading into today’s final round. Together, they form a menagerie of the terrible, the tacky, the pretentious and the clueless in the American culinary roadmap. Many of them will sort of make you hungry despite yourself.
First came the puns bracket, in which Thelonious Monkfish beat out contestants like Baguetteaboudit and Burger Moovment. Day two’s competition, among “distressingly sexual” names, seems like the most fierce, in hindsight; truly awful names like The Slow Bone, Tacorgasmico, Velvet Taco, and Munchboxx were all ruled out in the first round. Ultimately, a restaurant called Pink Taco won out over The Hairy Lobster, because, well, Pink Taco.
Day three brought a series of “crimes against language,” including befuddling stuff like Hashtag Poki and COUNTER 3.five.VII, which is even less fun to type than it is to read. Among these, an establishment named “Mooo….” was deemed most terrible—a bit of an upset, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that its four periods don’t even constitute a proper ellipsis. Finally came a catchall category of names that are just very bad, like Table and Pasta Beach, for which the befuddling ”Blunch” was crowned king of shit mountain.
In today’s finals, it was Mooo…. versus Blunch, a clash of monosyllabic, onomatopoeic grunts that, in their way, may as well have come from the distressingly sexual category. Blunch finally won out, cited alternately for the fact that it “kind of sounds like vomiting” and that it gives a stupid name to a thing that already has a stupid name. For what it’s worth, the food seems fine there, although maybe it’s time to rebrand.