Kitschy Themed Restaurant

"Stay away from the Swamp Thing Salad."

The stereotypical casual-dining chain restaurant of American Suburbia, often located in or near The Mall.

These restaurants are likely to be inspired by either idealized, nostalgic Americana, or a stereotypical image of an exotic place like Italy, Mexico, Australia, or Texas. The walls and ceilings are frequently festooned with decorations fitting the theme, such as sports memorabilia, road signs, vintage photos, old toys, guitars, and crab pots.

People actually from those places are likely to find the overly-processed, fancifully-named dishes served here almost unrecognizable. The appetizers range from the conventional mozzarella sticks and buffalo wings to Frankensteinian combinations like pizza nachos and southwestern egg rolls, while entrees run the gamut from traditional pastas and steaks to such monstrosities as cheeseburger quesadillas and Schezuan-style spare ribs, and are often served with buckets of french fries and salads that are anything but healthy. Portion sizes are usually gargantuan, as is the thickness of the menu. The dessert selection usually includes some hazardous-sounding chocolate creation involving the words "volcano" or "lava", and an oddly-flavored milkshake in a giant mug adorned with sugary treats is an option to wash your meal down with.

Many of these establishments have licenses to serve alcohol; when they do, you can be sure that they advertise all manner of proprietary neon-colored cocktails served in portions that seem designed to prevent drunk driving— either by an amount that couldn't intoxicate a flea or an amount that guarantees you won't be able to even find your car.

Often, everything from how customers are greeted to the way items are arranged on the tables are dictated by ultra-strict corporate guidelines, resulting in an eerily identical experience regardless of which branch of the restaurant one patronizes. Happiness Is Mandatory for the embarrassingly-dressed wait staff. Occasionally, a customer celebrating his birthday there will get an earful as all the restaraunt’s employees chant a custom corporate birthday song (since "Happy Birthday to You!" was copyrighted until 2015) while clapping.

It has begun to replace the Malt Shop as a stock setting in fiction, since there aren't many malt shops around any more. (Ironically, most of the few restaurants that go for the ‘50s malt shop’ vibe these days are places like Johnny Rockets and Red Robin, which are examples of this trope in their own right.)

Compare Burger Fool, Suck E. Cheese's, and Greasy Spoon. See also Cuisines in America.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Chainsaw Man: Family Burger is a diner-style restaurant where the staff together each announce a different ingredient for every order, one of whom wears a hamburger mascot mask. Kobeni starts working there after she leaves Public Safety, assuming it would be a better job than devil hunting until her boss starts threateningly lecturing her to look more happy and smacking her for stuttering. Then the Chainsaw Devil walks in for a meal, accidentally killing staff as they fearfully try to go through their regular routine trying to serve him.

Comic Books

• At the end of Kingdom Come, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman go to Planet Krypton, a superhero-themed restaurant where the staff are all in cheesy knockoffs of DC superhero costumes, use some of their catchphrases as jargon and the food is named after DC characters and titles.
• In an issue of Batman (Tom King), Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Damian Wayne and Duke Thomas all meet at the Batman themed "BatBurger", Bruce of course hating every minute of it. On their menu are the "BatBurger", "BatBurger Deluxe!", "BatBurger Deluxe Oversized!", "Bat-Mite Meals", "Night-Wings", "Robin Nuggets", "KGBLT", "Riddle-Me-Fish", "Killer Crocque Monsieur", "Two-Face Sandwich", "Ivy Salad" (not poison), "Bat-Minis", "Bat-Sodas" and "Bat-Fries". They have a server dressed in a very cheap looking Bat-suit who pisses Bruce off by offering to "Jokerise" his fries (Jason actually enjoyed it). Dick and Jason pissed Damian off by getting him a Bat-Mite meal, which got worse when he received a Red Hood action figure with it. He then shoved his burger in Jason's face while Dick and Duke made fun of Bruce for eating his burger with a knife and fork.
• Not surprisingly, there are superbeing-themed restaurants in Astro City like SuperBistro, Hero Cafe, and T.J. Scoundrels. They feature salvaged super-gear as decor, though the customers can't tell if they're real or shoddy knockoffs from Hong Kong.

Films — Animated

• Batman and Harley Quinn: Nightwing finds Harley working at a sleazy restaurant where all the waitresses dress as female superheroes and supervillains. He's amazed to find her in such a dump, but she points out that with her criminal record, nowhere else would hire her.
• In Onward, Ian and Barley's search for the Manticore's Tavern ends with them finding out it's turned into one of these, complete with treasure-map placemats and some poor schlub in a Goofy Suit.

Films — Live-Action

• In Office Space, Peter, Michael, and Samir take their coffee in Chotchkie's. The over-enthusiastic waiter wants to know whether they want to try the pizza shooters, shrimp poppers or extreme fajitas, while his coworker Joanna chafes under the manager's insistence that she wear a certain number of "pieces of flair" on her uniform.
• Our Relations: In this Laurel and Hardy movie, all the characters wind up at a fancy restaurant/nightclub that is pirate-themed. The greeter outside is Dressed to Plunder in standard pirate style, and inside there's a fake ship complete with mast and rigging. Naturally, Stan and Ollie wind up climbing into said rigging and destroying it, when they're chased by Finn and his goons.
• Waiting... takes place in a restaurant called Shenaniganz.^note Similar names are actually used for several sports-themed restaurants in the United States. One of them is in Hollywood, Florida.
• In Idiocracy, the Fuddruckers chain is still around in 2505, though its name has long since degenerated into a reference to anal sex.
• One scene in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby has Ricky dining at Applebee's with his parents and his two sons; Ricky's father gets thrown out after arguing with the waitress over the onions on his steak. The climax also features gratuitous, Played for Laughs Product Placement for Applebee's.
• Pulp Fiction features a restaurant called Jack Rabbit Slim's with a theme heavily inspired by pop culture from The '50s.

Literature

• It's briefly mentioned in Nanny Ogg's Cookbook that these exist on Discworld, with the theme being dwarfish culture. Real dwarfs hate the places, partly because of the kitschy stone-effect wallpaper and fake hammering noises, and partly because of the food, which consists of human dishes done up to resemble rat, and bread which is dense and crunchy but lacks the fundamental inedibility of proper dwarf bread. The Compleat Ankh-Morpork City Guide has an entry for a restaurant called Thank Gods It's Octeday^note Not to be confused with the wine bar Thank Gods It's Open in Thud!, but does not include further details.
• In Christopher Moore's Pine Cove series there are several English themed restaurants in the small town of Pine Cove.
• The fourth UglyDolls "Ugly Guide" has a section on "Family Restaurants". Included are things such as treasure map place mats, old bikes, and huge ice teas with tiny straws and restaurant tokens.
  Peaco: I know old bikes on a wall make ME hungry!
  Ox: Is that decor or was there an accident?
  Deer Ugly: My garage sale has come back to haunt me!
• In Harmonic Feedback, the walls of Café Mars are covered in records, photographs, magazine cutouts, antique toys, and tires.
• Dogs Don't Talk has Sergeant's, which is decorated with pictures of sergeants from old TV shows and movies.

Live-Action TV

• One MADtv (1995) sketch takes place at a J.J. Fuddermucker, a parody of Fuddruckers.
• The Ben Stiller Show features a sketch at TJ O'Pootertoot's, a family-friendly restaurant which hosts a deep, dark secret.
• How I Met Your Mother: In one episode, Barney and Ted pretend to be out-of-towners to meet girls, and get acquainted two girls who claim to be true New Yorkers, but their idea of New York dining is a chain restaurant called "Taterskins." Ted has a hard time biting his tongue.
• A sketch featuring The Birthday Boys featured a waiter who listed flavors of buffalo wings like "Mild, Spicy" and the third one he'd list would be an over-acted reaction rather (incredibly hot or tasty).
• One episode of The Chaser's War On Everything had Charles Firth visiting the Outback Steakhouse, an Australian-themed casual dining restaurant, and flipping out over how phony he found the place.
• Community: In "Comparative Religion", tough-guy bully Mike, waiting to fight with Jeff, tells his gang "Look, this dude don't show up, we're definitely going to Applebee's, right? 'Cause I'm getting into a fight no matter what!"
  • Later on, several third-season episodes feature the characters dining at "Senior Kevin's," a colorfully-Americanized Mexican restaurant reminiscent of the now-defunct chains Chi-Chi's or Don Pablo's.
• Will on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air briefly works at one that has a Caribbean theme and the employees dress as pirates.
• In The Good Place, the group visits an Eagleland-themed restaurant in Australia, where everything is based on stereotypes of the US.
• Parks and Recreation has the dinosaur-themed Jurassic Fork.
  • One episode shows the owner had a failed attempt at starting a chain where each restaurant was themed after a different Steven Spielberg movie, beginning with Schindler's Lunch. The characters note how badly he misunderstood what people liked about the theme.
  • Tom considers making an offer on the building for his own restaurant, only to be told one of the dinosaurs is a load-bearing structure and can't be moved.
• On The Big Bang Theory, Penny works at the Cheesecake Factory, a chain that really exists and is known for exaggerating the "huge portions" part of the trope. However, the "kitschy" part is actually inverted as the show's set is about as plain as a restaurant can get, whereas its real-life counterpart has some of the most bafflingly random and over-the-top interior décor imaginable.
• On The Boys (2019), Vought, as part of the commercialization of their stable of superheroes, has naturally opened a superhero-themed restaurant chain, complete with waiters dressed like the Seven.
• This is basically the premise of a round on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
• Cheers: At the beginning of series 11, after Rebecca accidentally burns the bar down, Carla gets a temporary job at "Mr. Pubs". Despite the tacky uniform, and being forced to be nice to customers, Carla's initially willing to stick with it because it pays well. That is, until she's introduced to a new hire, an eerie knock-off of Diane. Carla screams and runs for it, making Sam vow to never set foot there again.
  Sam: You're talking as if there was some kinda serial killer there.
  Carla: (Thousand-Yard Stare) Oh, if only...

Newspaper Comics

• McFriendly's, a restaurant that Zonker gets a job at in Doonesbury is a parody of these kinds of restaurants. "Every entree is guaranteed to be bigger than your head!"
• Cul-de-sac: The Otterloop family often dines out at P.J. Piehole's. Petey had a fear of the rowboat hanging from the ceiling falling on him.

Video Games

• In the Grand Theft Auto series, the Al Dente's chain is a parody of Olive Garden, its ads specifically making fun of the inauthentic Italian theme and the waistline-inflating portion sizes.
• Papa's Wingeria clearly invokes this feel.
• Mafia III has one of these in the form of the Briar Patch chain of restaurants scattered across the circa-1968 New Orleans expy of New Bordeaux, with a mascot based on the Br'er Rabbit character meant to both parody Big Boy Restaurants (more popular at the time than they are today) and satirize the Deep South's use of racist caricatures that were still somewhat common during that contentious era. Civil rights activist, black nationalist, and pirate radio host Charles "The Voice" Laveau calls them out for this during his radio show, "The Hollow Speaks"; highlighting the connection between the restaurant chain's founder and the abandoned theme park, "Baron Saturday's Fun Park" which was closed only three months after opening due to protests over racially insensitive imagery. It shows, given that some of the locations are still segregated, even after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. At one point, protagonist Lincoln Clay meets an informant in one to begin a new chapter. Lincoln can (usually) find adrenaline shots in their first-aid cabinets and roughly $40 in their cash registers.
  • Also seen in various locations around New Bordeaux is a parody of the real life Waffle House chain called "Perfect Waffle" using the same logo and typeface but changing the yellow in the Waffle House logo to white.
• In Escape from Monkey Island, part of the villain's nefarious plan to convert the Caribbean's economic basis from piracy to the service industry involves the creation of the "Planet Threepwood" chain of restaurants, based on the life and times of the game's protagonist. It features various pirate-themed decor (most of which was actually stolen from his house), and a waitress dressed as a very loose interpretation of his wife. Naturally, nobody believes he's the real Guybrush Threepwood.
• In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the Diner Wall items allow you to give your home this look, in "stuff on the wall" flavor.

Web Animation

• SPARKLE ON RAVEN features a former real-life example in Cooters Restaurant & Bar, which features a kitschy beach theme and decorations like a nativity scene with shrimp replacing the wise men and baby Jesus. Everyone in the show adores it; we're introduced to it in the Christmas Episode through an absurdly-long menu that everyone skips in favor of the Christmas Crab Legs. Unfortunately, the restaurant is due to close because of poor attendance, which was indeed the cause of its real-life closure.

Webcomics

• In Sluggy Freelance, there's Zomblebee's, a zombie-themed version of this. With actual zombie employees.
• In the epilogue of 8-Bit Theater, White Mage meets with Red Mage and Dragoon in one of these, based around the adventures of the 'Light Warriors'.
• A few Achewood comics feature Fiesta Max, a tacky mexican-themed chain with gimmicky food names and cloyingly cheerful waiters.

Web Original

• Our very own TV Tropes Café page is set up as the menu of a TV Tropes-themed restaurant. Tropes are used as the names for dishes, loyalty program perks, and Mega Meal Challenges, and it's staffed by Trope-tan and her friends.

Web Videos

• Campaign Three of Critical Role has "A Taste of Tal'Dorei", a restaurant in Bassuras, Marquet themed after the continent of Tal'Dorei, which featured heavily in Campaign One. There are waiters in costume as historical figures such as Warren Drassig, Zan Tal'Dorei, and Errevon the Rimelord performing mock battles, along with a gift shop.

Western Animation

• In the Daria episode "Life in the Past Lane", Tom takes Daria out to "Phineas T. Firefly's", a restaurant clearly modeled after T.G.I. Friday's. The overly enthusiastic waitress is enough to get them to leave.
• Regular Show's Wing Kingdom is a very obvious pastiche of Buffalo Wild Wings and TGI Friday's, having the exterior design and food of the former and the interior style of the latter (complete with Tiffany lamps and mounted moose head).
• Sealab 2021 features the "Grizzlebee's" chain, which provides several intrusive bouts of Product Placement whenever it's featured in an episode.
• Hinted at (but never shown) in The Brak Show, with the nautically themed "Fish Pockets", where customers can get their picture taken with the mascot Gary Grouper. ^note Later becoming the British-themed "Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze" after various time travel mishaps. It makes sense in context.
• The Simpsons episode "Bart Sells His Soul" features "Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag", featuring "all kinds'a crazy crap on the walls" and a Navy deep fryer that can "flash-fry a buffalo in 40 seconds."
  Homer: Forty seconds? But I want it now!
  • Not to mention the various restaurants mentioned in passing from earlier in the episode:
    Dr. Hibbert: Alright, where would you kids like to eat tonight?
    Young Son: The Spaghetti Laboratory!
    Young Daughter: Face-Stuffer's!
    Teenage Son: Professor V.J. Cornucopia's Fantastic Foodmagorium and Great American Steakery!
  • In "Natural Born Kissers", the Simpson family dines at the "Up, Up and Buffet!" A restaurant built from the cabin of an old airliner, including fake turbulence and silverware stored in the overhead compartments. According the writers in the DVD commentary, the restaurant was based on a former establishment in Los Angeles named "Dive!" that was inside a submarine-shaped building.
• One SpongeBob SquarePants episode sees Mr. Krabs sell the Krusty Krab to a chain who makes it into "Krabby O'Mondays," complete with wall bric-a-brac and Friday's-style striped tables.
• An episode of The Venture Bros. features a ninja-themed sushi restaurant where all the staff dress as ninjas, hand out fake throwing stars, and occasionally act out goofy martial-arts antics. Surprisingly, it's closely based on a real restaurant in New York.
• Exaggerated in The Weekenders, where the local pizza place cycles through elaborate theme concepts weekly. The episode "Celebrity", which features Tish briefly as the face of the restaurant after she becomes famous overnight, confirms that the owner does it intentionally for the gimmick's sake.
  [Tish sees the restaurant being remodeled]
  Tish: Hey, what happened to Tish Pizza?!
  "Pizza Guy": Psssh, that is so yesterday. So, what do you think of "Postal Pizza", with five service windows and only one employee? Or maybe "Visualize World Pizza"!
  [Tish walks off in a huff]
  "Pizza Guy": [calling after her] How about "The Pizza that Dares Not Speak Its Name"?!

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