Tag: murder burger

redrum she wrote

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redrum burger

The diner formerly known as Murder Burger. It had to change its name many years ago due to some out-of-towner complaining. Perhaps it should read ‘so good they’re to diet for’? Drew this place this week. I don’t go there often, but they do killer milkshakes.

Speaking of names, I heard that Arsenal FC are suing a lady who runs a hat shop in Seville of all places because its name apparently infringes their property rights. It’s called ‘Arsenale’, which as I’m sure you have spotted, is not the same word, it is spellt differently. It’s also an Italian word, likely referring to the Arsenale district of cities like Venice where ships were built (this hat shop is in Seville’s old ship building district). Is that absolutely mental or what? I mean seriously are they kidding? Is someone going to confuse a Sevillan hat shop with a poor underperforming team from Islington? Are they having a laugh? Apparently the Spanish judge is siding with Arsenal! Perhaps the hat-shop should call on a famous half-way line Gunners conqueror to represent them in court: Nayim. That’s a courtroom battle I’d like to see.

I wonder if a certain famous dead race horse is thinking, hmmm, maybe I should sue this diner in Davis for using my name? (“I know just the guy to represent me in court: Neigh-im“). No, that would be silly. But it could happen…

dial M for redrum

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Just as you get off the freeway at downtown Davis. Caffino is a drive-thru coffee booth, and Murder Burger is an old-school american diner that does incredible burgers and amazing milk-shakes. Oh, sorry Redrum Burger.
caffino & murder burger

They used to be called Murder Burger, and to most Davisites they still are. But a few years back they opened another one in some other dog-knows-where town, and someone complained that Murder Burger (“so good they’re to die for”) was not appropriate as a place to eat (even though appropriateness is usually measured by the money something makes). So they decided to change their name, and asked their customers to vote on a new name. The name that won with an overwhelming majority was, in fact, Murder Burger. So they went with the second choice, Redrum Burger (yes, I thought it meant the horse at first).

I don’t eat red meat anyway.

Week Seven: Murder is Meat

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When I lived in France there was a restaurant chain called ‘Flunch’. I always thought it was a bit dangerous naming your eatery after the noise made by vomit hitting the bottom of a bucket, but then I remembered that the ‘Happy Eater’ restaurants, which once graced many a dual carriageway roadside across Britain, chose an icon of somebody putting their fingers down their throat as their corporate image. It was a kind of disclaimer, or so they told me as a child when I spilled my insides all over the slide in the play-area.

America seems to have also taken the name game seriously. In California there is a chain of fast-food restaurants called ‘In-n-out Burger’. As they only serve burgers, I do not go in there, but it’s probably just as well. However, my new favourite place in Davis is the little 50’s style diner known to locals as ‘Murder Burger’. Their tagline reads ‘So Good, They’re To Die For’, and they really are. I had an ostrich burger (while staff made possibly real noises of slaughtering an ostrich in the kitchen) and a huge, ultra-thick peanut-butter milkshake. It was an overwhelming experience. Their title dish is a massive 1lb burger called ‘Annihilation’, that if I ate red meat I would try, but it would probably kill me.

Their sign no longer reads ‘Murder Burger’, but goes by the moniker ‘Redrum Burger’. When they opened a second branch about eight years ago in a different town (one less liberal than Davis), some locals complained about the name, so they held a poll among their faithful customers to change the name. The winner, by a mile, was actually ‘Murder Burger’, but they went with the runner-up. Of course, nobody in Davis ever calls it ‘Redrum’; that would be so, like, not cool.

In a world of Taco Bells (read: ambulance sirens) and Burger Kings (read: throne up), Murder Burger sits comfortably, even if the clientele doesn’t.

 

Originally posted 11/15/2005