I, for one, welcome our American culture overlords

[rousseau]

Montana's
Boston Pizza
Chicago Pub & Billiards
Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen

Have you ever seen such a concentration of cultural capitulation? I'm laissez-faire enough to not like top-down cultural solutions much, but when this kind of thing happens it's sort of amazing that nobody notices or cares.


https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.4239319,-80.4843623,19z

Though I suppose Turtle Jack's Muskoka Grill is at least a nod to something homegrown.

[vid]

Sorry, I've run out of fucks to give.

[milomilo]

AFAIK Boston Pizza is named after a person not the city.

[waterloowarrior]

All depends how you look at it
A restaurant chain owned by an Indo-Canadian immigrant who got an MBA at Western and became a billionaire
A pizzeria owned by a former RCMP officer who turned a franchise opportunity into a company worth hundreds of millions and TV fame.
A Southwestern Ontario success story
A Canadian-based multi-national that purchased one of America's most successful quick-service restaurant chains

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by milomilo

AFAIK Boston Pizza is named after a person not the city.

Huh?

[urbandreamer]

^Greek guy liked the Boston Red Sox so much he named his pizza shop after the city. Or maybe he was cruising through Boston, Ontario one Friday the 13th on the way to Port Dover.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

All depends how you look at it
A restaurant chain owned by an Indo-Canadian immigrant who got an MBA at Western and became a billionaire
A pizzeria owned by a former RCMP officer who turned a franchise opportunity into a company worth hundreds of millions and TV fame.
A Southwestern Ontario success story
A Canadian-based multi-national that purchased one of America's most successful quick-service restaurant chains

And yet they chose to name their restaurants after American geographic locations. Why?

Let's investigate these references, shall we? Boston is not known for pizza. New York is, as are Naples and Rome, obviously, but not Boston.

Stupid.

Chicago is a city known for taverns, not pubs. Pubs are British.

Fail.

Montana is not known for food. Or do they only serve rack of deer and other prizes of the blood sports? I've never been and never will.

For taking the name of an arbitrary US state: fail.

Is fried chicken in Louisiana considered good? I guess southern fried chicken is a thing, so maybe this one gets a pass.

The worst fail of all is New Orleans Pizza. Pizza and New Orleans do not go together for any well-known reason. I've (shamefully) been to the one in Stratford for late night slices. It's terrible, awful pizza, and the only thing sadder than the puffy dough and greasy flavourelessness of their pies is the saxophone and musical notation kitsch decorating the walls. They've got dozens of locations all over small-town southwestern Ontario.

[JHikka]

Canada's culture is affected by its massive, world culture-influencing neighbour. More at 11.

[megadude]

Add another chain in that general region. New Orleans Pizza is heavily concentrated in SWO. And to date the best panzerotti I've had, which was at the Fergus location. Also had a pretty decent pie at the Wiarton location. Those are the only two I've been to.

Some city names just sound cool and it's a marketing gimmick. Some have some history with a particular cuisine and they try to draw on that association. Not sure what Boston or New Orleans have to do with pizza though. But they sound cool. Like Boston Market in the US. There's also Boston Jerk in Jamaica, but that's in the village of Boston Bay.

Montana's sounds cool. Like Tony Montana. And Louisiana, I guess anywhere in the south like KY, is known for deep frying anything and everything.

What is a Canadian equivalent or could be?

Halifax Donair checks both boxes for coolness and relevance. And they have locations in Burlington and Milton. I suspect owned by the same person since it's only two, but their website says franchise opportunities available.

[Pinus]

To be honest, I'm of the opinion that Canadians in general are too weak-minded to realize how Americanized they are. It's as if places like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are of national significance.....in Canada. The demand for garbage restaurants and commercial chains.....Checkers, Carl's Jr., Olive Garden, Target, JC Penny, etc. is significant. For some reason, our country wants to look, eat, speak, spell and act like Yankees. I read somewhere that there are almost as many American flags flying in Canada as Canadian flags. I wouldn't be surprised if more Canadians know the words to the Star Spangled Banner than Oh Canada, specifically the younger generations.

Canadians are just lazy and don't care about Canadian culture or identity. Its easier to just default to American culture. So very very sad.

[vid]

Not only that, but Canada's head of state is some British twat.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Canada's culture is affected by its massive, world culture-influencing neighbour. More at 11.

Exactly. And it's not surprising that Anglo-Canada's relative cultural vacuum gets filled by the closest, strongest force available. In fact, anything else would be weird.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Huh?

Actually, never mind. I was sure it was named after something that wasn't the obvious, but I am talking out of my behind it would appear. Seems the owner also pulled the name out of his behind.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Huh?

This thread... were you born yesterday or just wake up from a coma?

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by lio45

Exactly. And it's not surprising that Anglo-Canada's relative cultural vacuum gets filled by the closest, strongest force available. In fact, anything else would be weird.

It's not a cultural vacuum per se. As per kool maudit's pithily expressed formulation, we contribute to American culture as a regional variant (though more anonymously than the other regional contributors), and we've got Alice Munro and stuff. There's a lot going on.

But we needlessly default to the easy American signposts too often. Like in the case of these execrable chain restaurants. I'm not asking for "Toronto Pizza," because that would be ridiculous: there's no such thing as "Toronto" pizza. But neither is there "Boston" pizza. People should boycott Boston Pizza just on principle for crissakes.

Whatever happened to Luigi's Pizza? Francesco's Pizza? Gino's Pizza? Or even Pizzaiolo, come to think of it. Wouldn't that be a good one?

Wait a minute: Pizzaiolo is a chain in Toronto, and Gino's is in Hamilton. So it would make sense that Canada's two main Italian cities would have those.

I'm not asking for Bob and Doug's Pizza, but Boston Pizza offends me as a culturally sentient person. Chicago Pub, New Orleans Pizza and Montana's do too.

We need to do something.

[vid]

Man if you're taking restaurant names that literal I hope you never go to Shoeless Joe's.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by vid

Man if you're taking restaurant names that literal I hope you never go to Shoeless Joe's.

I wouldn't care to eat at a restaurant that doesn't serve shoes.

My wife and I went to Crappy Joe's once. We figured we could've saved a lot of money by getting some frozen pasta dinners at the supermarket and having them at home instead.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by rousseau

It's not a cultural vacuum per se. As per kool maudit's pithily expressed formulation, we contribute to American culture as a regional variant (though more anonymously than the other regional contributors), and we've got Alice Munro and stuff. There's a lot going on.

But we needlessly default to the easy American signposts too often. Like in the case of these execrable chain restaurants. I'm not asking for "Toronto Pizza," because that would be ridiculous: there's no such thing as "Toronto" pizza. But neither is there "Boston" pizza. People should boycott Boston Pizza just on principle for crissakes.

Whatever happened to Luigi's Pizza? Francesco's Pizza? Gino's Pizza? Or even Pizzaiolo, come to think of it. Wouldn't that be a good one?

Wait a minute: Pizzaiolo is a chain in Toronto, and Gino's is in Hamilton. So it would make sense that Canada's two main Italian cities would have those.

I'm not asking for Bob and Doug's Pizza, but Boston Pizza offends me as a culturally sentient person. Chicago Pub, New Orleans Pizza and Montana's do too.

We need to do something.

I am in full agreement with you. But unfortunately, the majority of Canadians just don't care how Americanized they are. Take Vidlette's responses in this thread, for example. And lio45, who is clearly enamoured with American culture since he lives there much of the time. They are just a tiny subset of the example of how Canadians are just fine with having become America Jr.

I honestly don't know what it would take to wake people up to see how far down the rabbit hole they have crawled.

[vid]

Yes, it would be much better if we were like England, where the capital city's signature dish is Butter Chicken and the leading grocery store chain is Iceland. Did you know Iceland doesn't sell eyjafjallajokull?? LIARS! And now the UK is leaving the EU! Coincidence????

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by vid

Man if you're taking restaurant names that literal I hope you never go to Shoeless Joe's.

Here in Vancouver we have...

http://www.cannibalcafe.ca/#welcome