This is an outstanding idea.
I went to a bar like this in Brooklyn. It was decorated like the outside of a trailer park, complete with little trailers that were dining booths. There were strings of lights for ambient lighting and the tables had camping lamps.
The rest of the furniture was lawn chairs and folding tables, and they served hot dogs and hamburgers and potato salad, standard picnic fare.
There’s a place similar in Providence, RI. Ogie’s Trailer Park.
Honestly, that sounds like some refreshing fun. Have the cook with a big grill out front, and putting in the order is just chatting with them.
“Hey, bud, you want a burger, hot dog, steak, or some of this brisket I been smoking since this morning? Want something to drink? There’s beer and soda in the cooler, or we got tap water. The little cooler has juice for the little’uns.”
And then have a cashier keep track of what they had, conveyor-belt sushi style. The cook chats with whoever is standing around drinking a beer with them (and is drinking beers or soda or whatever all shift), and everything gets served on paper plates. And the tables are all those wooden picnic tables with cheap plastic tablecloths.
And those who are eating there are encouraged to stand around and chat with other people as well (if they want). Just make the whole thing like a backyard barbecue with your neighbor Hank.
And hire nothing but retired men and women working part time as the cooks. Nothing but grill daddies and mommies, working just for some extra cash and the fun of barbecuing. I would take that job when I retired in an instant.
Edit: better yet, make it habachi-style, where there’s a grill daddy/mommy for every group or two, set up like a park barbecue. I love this and want to go to one or work at one now.
My new retirement plan is to open that joint here in the States.
I would do this, just give me a pack of smokes and drinks and ill cook ya whatever you want (and im not even american!)
Have the full experience with Accent and flags. It might sell.
I tell you hwut.
I think the full experience would be children running around with the dirtiest faces you’ve ever seen.
Your uncle getting in trouble with the park ranger for feeding the seagulls again.
One of your cousins brought their new girlfriend to the event and are for some reason fighting in the parking lot
Your aunt brought her Rottweiler who barks and snaps at all the families passing by
I grew up in Florida
I grew up in Texas. Needs more dominos and spades, and pawpaw needs to pray over the food.
I ain’t religious but I ain’t telling pawpaw not to pray over the food.
I went to a western restaurant in Japan that was “stereotypical USA” themed and there was mainly kitschy shit all over the place like advertising memorabilia (stuff m&m character statues) and of course american flag themed stuff (but iirc no actual flag)
It was a long time ago but I remember the menu was like burgers, hotdogs, mac and cheese, etc and the food was super mid. Main thing I do remember was the mac and cheese was 100% kraft dinner which was so disappointing. the burger was also weak which is inexcusable because japan has serious burger game
Burgers come from Hamburg, Germany, hot dogs come from Frankfurt, Germany, macaroni and cheese come from Rome, Italy.
yeah no shit, america is a melting pot and it’s food culture is an amalgamation of foods from other cultures
And frankly some aspects of most of those are spurious. The origin of the hamburger is debatable mainly because before america it was (probably) just a mince patty served with sauce, much closer to what japan serves as hambagu/ハンバーグ. It likely wasn’t until it came through shipping ports to america that it was served on bread, ground instead of minced (though this was likely a function of the era), and eventually over time evolved to the modern version of what we consider a “hamburger”
Mac and cheese actually goes back to medieval england and was closer to a lasagna. The extruded version is also probably england, or possibly france. Unless you’re simply attributing dried pasta, which is probably an italian invention, but may be arabic
Frankfurter is german but the modern hotdog is american and debatably the idea of serving it in a bun is an american invention, which again goes back to the hamburger and the insanity of prior to america people struggle to combine meat and bread
In closing I bet you’re fun at parties. Also while america sucks at so many things we definitely make the best burgers in the world, hands down
I was dragged to a country western bar in Japan so, it’s not impossible?
I’d love to go to a bar like that in Japan purely to judge the authenticity.
I went to one in a small town in Japan years ago. It was actually really adorable, the owner LOVED that I was from California
I feel like it might be confusing when I tell them I’m from Ohio 🤣
There was (maybe still is?) a lesbian country and western bar in West Hollywood, CA.
Went in by mistake once.
Doesn’t yakitori exist already?
Yeah but it counts only if you’re an American
I like this a lot better than the standard American [insert meme here] where everybody has like 5 guns. Such a tired trope.
Indeed, it has been done many times, but there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon. like their school shootings
Completely stopping school shootings, probably not, but it seems likely that some may be getting redirected to the C-suite.
I’ve got dozens of guns and a heck of a BBQ setup.
We can do both.
TBH I’d much rather have Thai food lol.
yo im down for some pad thai right now
My favorite rotates. Currently panang curry.
damm that shit good.
Gra pow moo krop here
I want to see Buc-ee’s and the fast food chain Cookout go international. That’s authentic American food, and it’s pretty damn tasty.
I used to work down the street from another building that had a small cafeteria, but on Fridays the chef would set up a big grill outside and cook up sausages, hot dogs, burgers, chicken, and grilled veggies. It was just like going to a backyard BBQ. Those were some good Friday lunches when we made it over there.
South Korea has American restaurants
Lots of the places where be traveled have American restaurants. They are a fascinating look into what people think is American. I love it
I’m pretty sure it’s like this for every cousine.
The bottom line is that restaurants have to have a theme, right, how else would anyone even talk about it? And the theme is usually some region of the world with varying specificity, my favorite is “fusion,” where the restaurant has two, or even three themes. When you go to a place with any theme, it’s always a charicature. In the case of restaurants, I’ve found that the food rarely represents the daily cuisine of the regular people of whatever place or tradition, it’s rather the cuisine of a restauranteur trying to run a business.
It’s a few choice special dinner dishes, like Sunday or holiday meals, and a few chubby-kid approved favorites, and it seems just as often it’s stereoptyical dishes that may not even be from the place/culture, such as General Tso’s Chicken, that came from one Hunanese resteraunt in New York in 1972, and is now in the menu if every Chinese restaurant in America. And American restaurants abroad serve franks and hamburgers, despite the origins of both being in Frankfurt and Hamburg, Germany. In sum, there are no rules and everything is made up. You can get New Haven style pizza in Rome.
God I wish
If your normal diet consists of healthy food like many Japanese diets do, eating authentic American food is NOT a good idea, especially southern food. I say this from experience.
I always wonder how culturally authentic these gimmicky restaurants are. Like realistically hardly anybody in America grills food in the backyard. I do it maybe 3x/year and only in the summer. I’ve seen my dad multiple times grill with snow on the ground, but he was an outlier.
I think it depends on the region of America. I grill a lot in the back yard and so do a lot of friends and family.
Exactly, it’s regional cooking not “American” cooking. A Texas bbq is different from a Chicago or Oakland bbq, and some people insist theirs is the only “real” kind.
