Thursday, January 21, 2010

Did You Ever Notice....



I happened to be at a local Chicago Mexican restaurant the other day and, well, en route to the washroom, it look me a couple seconds to stop and figure out which was the ladies room. Sure, take a moment to insert some form of a joke, but it was largely due to a) the writing in said restaurant's native language b) the fancy, cursive, almost hard to read font and c) the non-standard man/woman logo (in this instance - it was a fancy, old-fashioned painting on each door - discernible, but one would have to take a moment to examine it, as opposed to with the basic graphic).

The more that I think about, quite a few restaurants I've been to have instated the same practice. Now, say what you will about Spanish being a commonplace language - Italian, Latin, etc., are not. Is this supposed to be cute/quirky/stylistic/creating an atmosphere? Granted, yes, it's a nice detail. However, I find it could cause more harm than good - these signs are confusing enough SOBER - and with many of these restaurants either being BYOB or having the alcohol flowing, well, I think you see where I'm going with this....

Actually, now that I think about this - are restaurants trying to dupe people? Is there someone sitting behind a hidden camera, laughing every time someone walks into the wrong one? Does anyone else not like this trend? Anyone get walked in on by a confused person? Your thoughts?

2 comments:

emily said...

why were you EATING on a SCHOOL NIGHT?!?! Were you on a DATE?!? ;)

That's Not My Name said...

Maybe you should brush up on your Romance languages. Then you wouldn't have this problem! My main issue is with the poor lighting in the bathroom areas of such establishments. I hate walking down a narrow, dimly lit hallway, only to encounter an obscurely painted door that takes more than a few seconds to figure out. So yeah, I feel you on that.

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