Restroom Door Signs

[Holly Moore]

During my trip to Charleston SC I got to noticing the signs on restroom doors. Hardly anyone used Men and Women.

My favorite three:

Your Place: Inboards and Outboards - Inboards being women and Outboards, men.

The Anchor Line: He Crabs and She Crabs

The Wreck: Richards and Charlenes

The Wreck is named for a famous post Hurricane Hugo Wreck. The Wreck of the Richard & Charlene

[KatieLoeb]

Holly:

The White Dog Cafe here in Philadelphia has a "Republicans" and a "Democrats" room.

They're both unisex.

[Mudpuppie]

I'm not advocating boring, but I don't like it when you have to think too hard. I remember seeing doors once that were labeled, "turtles" and "tortoises." I don't think they were unisex, although maybe at the time I was too naive to realize that was the secret.

I have to admit with some embarassment that I eat at Macaroni Grill once a year (xmas eve) with the family. My mother always, always comments on their bathroom doors. (The inside of the women's says "Men," like you're about to walk into the wrong one when you leave the bathroom.) She thinks that's the cleverest thing. Every year she thinks that!

[tommy]

"buoys" and "gulls" at a mediocre seafood restaurant in Point Pleasant, NJ (one of Jack Baker's places), and probably any number of other similarly-themed places.

maybe i'm old fashioned, but i like "men" and "women". no silly pictures. no plays on words. the last thing i want to do is stare at two or more doors looking clueless when i'm going for the bathroom.

Edited January 29, 2004 by tommy (log)

[mongo_jones]

The Anchor Line: He Crabs and She Crabs

he-crabs and she-crabs might be more appropriate at a sex-disease clinic than at a restaurant. stirs up all the wrong kind of images for me.

[Mudpuppie]

Sheesh, you should see what the doors at the clinic do say.

Wait, not that I've been there.

It was a joke.

Never mind.

[elivesay]

I was just commenting on this subject to my boyfriend last week. We ran into some random bar in Midtown to escape the cold. I went to the ladies room, which had nothing but some sort of Xena-woman painted on it. A man in a similar style was painted on the men's room door. I came back from the experience thinking, while I agree there is much room for creativity on the "Men/Women" theme in some establishments, a bloody bar really should stick to the basics because I can see the possibility for my own confusion if I wandered back there after a few drinks.

[JennyUptown]

NOT that I frequent the places (except when my young cousins were in town and I wanted to try to freak them out a little), but NYC's Jekyll and Hyde minichain has hidden bathroom doors.

In the Greenwich Village location, the hallways is made to look like library shelves. The door is unmarked [a reasonably subtle sign hangs up high - most people miss it completely]. Once you figure out that you are, in fact, in the right general vicinity, you have to push on the wall, and again, and again...until you find it. When drinking a few pints at the bar, it's best to leave for the bathroom slightly before you really need to.

[elivesay]

NOT that I frequent the places (except when my young cousins were in town and I wanted to try to freak them out a little), but NYC's Jekyll and Hyde minichain has hidden bathroom doors. 

In the Greenwich Village location, the hallways is made to look like library shelves.  The door is unmarked [a reasonably subtle sign hangs up high - most people miss it completely].  Once you figure out that you are, in fact, in the right general vicinity, you have to push on the wall, and again, and again...until you find it.  When drinking a few pints at the bar, it's best to leave for the bathroom slightly before you really need to.

that's evil!

[Blondie]

As visitors to Ireland (and some Irish pubs) no doubt quickly learned, the Irish word for woman is "Mná" and the word for man is "Fir". Add some clueless tourists and several pints of Guiness. Hilarity ensues.

[Moopheus]

Rein's Deli in Vernon, CT has Menhattan and Queens.

[Rachel Perlow]

A Malasian place we like has normal signs on the doors, but what I love is the sign leading to the restroom hallway: "Nature Calls"

[jhlurie]

Heh. We haven't had a good bathroom thread here on eGullet in months. Thanks Holly.

My least favorite are the ones with vague pictures. They've gotten vague because someone decided that the "female" picture with a big triangular bottom representing a skirt is too old fashioned and sexist. So now it's anything goes.

Hell, I can't always even remember the Male and Female arrow symbols.

[Eric_Malson]

There's an Ohio-based chain of bar/restaruants called Max and Erma's that catered to a singles-that-would-like-to-meet-other-singles clientele. One of these opened in my hometown when I was in high school (you could go if you were under 21 until the early evening). High-school kids thought it was great (and it was fun at the time) with its old-fashioned telephones at each table so you could ring other tables in the restaurant (there were glowing globes with numbers over each table so you knew what to dial) and the carved wooden bust behind the bar of an extremely buxom woman, replete with strategically placed beer taps.

Anyhow, more on topic, the restroom doors had very large, highly-stylized cartoon drawings of a man and a woman (presumably one of "Max" and one of "Erma"--the way they were drawn sort of remind me of Andy Capp characters). The thing was that the women's room had the drawing of Max on the door, pointing to where the actual men's room was to the left, and the men's room had the drawing of Erma pointing to the right (somewhere on each door was a completely unobtrusive little placard with the correct name for the room's intended user). It WAS rather funny watching first-timers burst, full of confidence, into the wrong restroom....

[Huevos del Toro]

What Eric said.

A bar in Old Sacramento, years and years ago. A full sized horse-drawn fire engine hangs over the bar.

Upstairs..."Men" and "Women" with attendent hands pointing to the opposite door. Separates the locals from the tourists quite effecively. Well, it was funny the first time. Less so later.

[jackal10]

At a local outdoor event there were hired portable loos.

In the mens urinal trailer, just at eye height it read

"For this relief we give much thanks to <name of hire company>"

WHich I guess takes us onto graffiti. Written on the ceiling

"You are now peeing on your shoes"

[Schneier]

I like names that have nothing to do with gender:

Rural - Urban

Local - Express

Real - Imaginary

Regular - Extra-Crispy

Bruce

[Cusina]

I'll admit to being amused by the sign in our local outback steakhouse that points patrons to the "used beer department".

[Jensen]

Hell, I can't always even remember the Male and Female arrow symbols.

Oh, those are easy to remember. The male has the arrow shooting up in the air; that's because guys can pee over the fence. The female has the cross hanging down; that's because we can't.

[Al_Dente]

My memory is a bit foggy, but I believe the Tune Inn on DC's Capitol Hill has taxidermied (a word?) rear ends of antelopes or something above each of the doors. You have to take a look to pick the one that most closely matches your..... errr..... physiology.

[jsolomon]

I love the ones that Utilikilts has for sale... ADA compliant!

Click and weep.

[phaelon56]

Amusing. The one I remember best that caused no end of confusion for those who are unacquainted with animal husbandry or taxonomy was at a local ski area whos slopes served as a grazing area for a got herd during the summer months. The rest rooms were labeled Nannies and Billies. Seemd simple enough to me but cause lots of confusion.

Speaking of bathroom threads.... a friend of mine used to drag her co-workers into a trendy dowtown hilly restauirant for a drink whenever they were in town on business - for the sole purpose of having them all see the tres kewl stall doors in the bathrooms. These are the glass doors that are clear when they're unlocked and turn opaque when the lock is engaged. I think that either the bathrooms or changing rooms at the downtown Prada store in NYC has the same deal going.

My pet peeve is the places that use the symbol for feminine or masculine gender - the circle with the arrow or the circle with the cross. Used to be that you get a few drinks in me and I can't keep them straight. I've been sober for years and I still can't keep them straight (no pun intended). I think they should just make 'em all unisex and use Prince's glyph on the door.

[tommy]

growing up a huge fan of The Who, it was always easy for me to remember which symbol was masculine. without that connection, however, i would have been doomed to years of embarrassment.

plus, the feminine symobl looks like a skinny lady with one big boob.

Edited January 29, 2004 by tommy (log)

[jpyvr]

When I was abou 11 or 12 I went to Italy with my parents. I spoke no other language but English at the time, and remember being totally baffled by the bathroom signs, which though standard Italian were very confusing to little old me.

" Signori" and " Signore" seemed WAY too similar, and so if I was visiting a bathroom alone (without parental guidance) I always waited to see someone either enter or exit one of the doors. Of course, it didn't dawn on me at the time that the person entering might have been another English-speaker about to make a big mistake!

[phaelon56]

High-school kids thought it was great (and it was fun at the time) with its old-fashioned telephones at each table so you could ring other tables in the restaurant (there were glowing globes with numbers over each table so you knew what to dial)

Getting slightly off topic but when I was growing up in the 60's, we had a local singles bar called the "Ding-A-Ling Lounge". They had the same phone system in place but also had the convenience of a "ring check" at the door (just a gag I hope but it was ostensibly a place for married guys to stash their wedding rings while they cruised the single women). It didn't last long for obvious reasons.