Daring Fireball
‘A List of Chain Restaurants Whose Names Contain Unusual Structures’
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/03/25/chain-restaurants-whose-names-contain-unusual-structures
‘A List of Chain Restaurants Whose Names Contain Unusual Structures’

Link to: https://onefoottsunami.com/2026/03/18/a-list-of-chain-restaurants-whose-names-contain-unusual-structures/

Daring Fireball
Mar 25 at 7:56pmDF Tootbot
Show threadKen McLeod2d ago

@daringfireball If "roadhouse" and "warehouse" merit their own categories, what about Firehouse Subs?

And let us not forget Church's Chicken.

Show threadNathan2d ago
@daringfireball (1/4)
@gruber
Show threadNathan2d ago
@gruber Speaking of restaurant names that people use the wrong name for, in the Dayton, Ohio, area, there’s a pizza business with nine locations. It’s been around for over 60 years and often wins awards for best pizza in the area. The actual name is Marion’s Piazza. Piazza is the Italian word for a public square. (2/4)
@daringfireball
Show threadNathan2d ago
But since it’s a pizza place, and piazza is only one letter off, everyone, and I mean everyone, calls it Marion’s Pizza. If you came here and called it Marion’s Piazza, no one would have any idea what you’re talking about. And surely whoever started the business should have realized how confusing pizza/piazza is and avoided that name, right? (3/4)
@daringfireball @gruber
Show threadNathan2d ago
Or after a few years maybe they should have changed it to actually match what people call it? It’s just a very strange bit of Dayton trivia. (4/4)
@daringfireball @gruber
Show threadBryan Powell2d ago
@nwd I know this place, it migrated to the north Cincinnati suburbs and I do a double take each time I see it
Show threadJohn Gruber1d ago
@nwd My type of story. I love it. Thanks!
Show threadKev Rodgers1d ago
@gruber @nwd “Oh boy! I’m gonna have a piazza, I’m gonna have a piazza!” https://youtu.be/jEaEFLQa3Ck?si=4zira3c8lpgEMGrJ&t=6
Charlie Dog saves the Leaning Tower of Pisa

YouTube
Show threadPaul McGrane1d ago
@nwd @daringfireball @gruber Isn't Dayton also where the inscrutably named Fifth Third bank is from? (I went to a wedding there once … well the city not the bank)
Show threadNathan1d ago
@pmcg @daringfireball @gruber Fifth Third started in Cincinnati, but yeah it has a big presence in the Dayton area, too. Their slogan is that they do things “a fifth third better” which is nonsensical. They’d be better off having no slogan than something that sounds like word salad.
Show threadPaul McGrane1d ago
@nwd @daringfireball @gruber I guess it has something to do with the street? But they're almost to 6/6 which is one
Show threadDavid Wheeler2d ago
@daringfireball Pub or Public House?
Show threadGlenn Fleishman2d ago
@daringfireball I confess I thought my Italian was strong enough that it was “mouth of Beppo,” not “Beppo’s Pit”, until reading this and following links to dialectical use. (Bocca versus buca.) There’s a phrase in Italian, “in bocca al lupo” (into the mouth of the wolf, or “break a leg”) that I thought Buca di Beppo was playing off!
Show threadPeter Cohen2d ago
@glennf @daringfireball Buca was always a straight up ripoff of "red sauce joints" starting with Boston's own Vinny Testa's. Second-generation eyetai performative bullshit right from the start.
Show threadGlenn Fleishman2d ago
@flargh @daringfireball Oh, yeah, I went twice about 20+ years ago. Once, a friend was excited and we went. Fun! But I’d lived on the east coast and gone to Boston a lot? The second time, command performance for somebody's birthday. I think my wife and I had to chip in $60 total in 2000 for some not great food. But the bathrooms were well decorated.
Show threadJason Snell2d ago
@glennf @daringfireball They loved this joke down in Buca Raton
Show threadGlenn Fleishman2d ago
@jsnell @daringfireball The health inspectors shut that version down.
Show threadPaulPaulOne2d ago
@daringfireball apparently your friends were not alone. A search for “showbiz pizza palace” returns lots of hits - even a news article with “palace” in the headline but the correct name in the body.
Show threadGeoff Beier2d ago
@daringfireball Showbiz Pizza: where a kid can be a kid.
Show threadJacob 0xFFF2d ago
@daringfireball we got Pizza Factories out here.
Show threadGregg Alley2d ago
@daringfireball We have Pizza Inns in South Carolina. 😄
Show threadBryan Powell2d ago
@daringfireball Until I read this post, I thought it was "palace" for 40 years, and now I feel uncouth.
Show threadFrank Malinowski1d ago
@daringfireball @gruber Did they steal Billy Bob from Disney's Country Bear Musical Jamboree? 😂