Restaurants that take pride in their routes

[Fat Guy]

I suppose I've always noticed that a lot of restaurants name themselves after the highways and byways on which they're located, but today I saw a particularly thick cluster of this behavior and gave it a few additional moments' thought. I was out on Route 22 in New Jersey, heading from Turnpike exit 14 out to Mountainside, and it seemed every quarter mile I passed a restaurant named for Route 22, e.g., "Rio 22 Brazilian Steakhouse and Sushi."

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Route 22, it's about the least appealing stretch of road in the Western industrialized world. So naming your restaurant after Route 22 is not like naming your restaurant "The Madison Avenue Diner." Unless I'm radically misunderstanding the culture of New Jersey, I'm pretty sure there's no cachet at all to being on Route 22.

In addition, since Route 22 is just about the only road out there (just try finding an alternate route to Mountainside when the Route 22 traffic is bad, even aided by GPS), it's not like anybody is going to get confused and fail to find the restaurant.

I've also found that the numeric designations don't actually help people who are navigationally challenged. For example, I can't count how many times I've been at China 46 (on Route 46, a route perhaps even more undistinguished than Route 22) and received a call from the friends we were supposed to meet: "What road is it on?"

So what's up with this route-naming behavior?

[nakji]

Virtually all of the best Vietnamese restaurants in Hanoi are named after their street address. I don't know why - tradition, I guess, or maybe because certain streets are famous for a particular dish. Either way, it makes them easy to find.