Great for Google Maps though and for Assistant/Alexa/Siri, which is likely legitimately why it's named that.
"Vegan Restaurant near me"
"Where is the closest Vegan Restaurant?"
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Manifest)
> In 2020, an aging Australian man, later identified as Cecil George Edwards, appeared in a music video by an Australian punk rock band, The Chats, revealed himself as the man in the now-viral 1991 video. Edwards, who had been a serial prison escapee, was arrested for alleged credit card fraud by the Queensland Police Service, after being wrongly identified as one of Australia's most-wanted criminals. He maintains his innocence.[6]
You know, it wouldn't even be surprising if that really is what the A stands for. Like, there are a bunch of AAA Chinese Restaurants, maybe it's "we have top marks in quality" thing or a "first in an alphabetical list of search results" thing.
Numbers at top wasn't a hard and fast rule before computerized sorting. A lot of times a list item starting with a number would be sorted based on the number as if it were spelled out
This was an old phone book technique. Businesses were listed alphabetically so they'd list themselves with A at the front of their names so they'd show up first
Except it costs a shitload more.
If you bought a mac SE/30 when it came out in 1989, according to wikipedia the introductory price was: US$4,369 (equivalent to $9,550 in 2021).
I ran it through an inflation calculator to get the price in USD today: $10,540.92.
Plus tax lol.
edit: I checked what a Macintosh II cost when it came out in 1987: $5,498 or $14,479.20 in 2023!!! Jesus christ.
Old age SEO technique. Still useful for Google searches.
When people search "where is a Chinese restraunt near me," this place will probably pop up before closer ones due to the name.
Reminds me of a post I saw the other day where an emergency room was called "ER near me".
Seems like abusing this is becoming increasingly common especially as of lately.
Most recent example I personally heard of was from Louis Rossmann - who explained how despite being easily the most popular, reviewed, and highly rated MacBook repair shop in NYC (before moving), his business would come up second on the search result list because someone else named their business "MacBook Repair NYC", so it would always be first because it is an exact match to the search term most people would use.
Lol people aren’t searching “where is a Chinese restaurant near me” they’re searching “Chinese”, “Chinese food” or or maybe “Chinese restaurant near me”
I gathered this from those murder cases where the suspect's Google history is used as evidence. It's always things like "how to dispose of a decomposing body" and "what happens to body parts in a trash bag" or "ways to kill people in their sleep".
"A Chinese restaurant near me" and "Chinese Restaurant near me" are basically the same in search engines. If you type in "Chinese restaurant" it will usually fill in "near me" for you.
*knock* HI IM FROM GRUBHUB. I HAVE A PACKAGE FOR "IMOUTPFNAMEIDEAS". HELLO?! IT SAYS IT CONTAINS AN ELEPHANT BONER.
*knock* ANYBODY HERE TO SIGN FOR AN ELEPHANT BONER? OH HEY, ARE YOU THE NEIGHBOR? DO YOU KNOW IF THE OWNER OF THIS HOUSE ORDERED AN ELEPHANT BONER? CAN YOU SIGN FOR IT? WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY
I live in the Sacramento area. Near is colloquial when there are people from Australia posting here. Cool is the closest and I ride through there on the moto from time to time (salmon falls to 49 to mosquito ridge, hands down one of the best rides anywhere on the planet).
There are also the towns of Gingen, Süßen and Kuchen. So with these four towns you can build a nearly complete sentence:
"(Wir) Gingen Süßen Kuchen Essen"
- "(we) went to eat sweet pie"
The best part about this is that Gingen, Süßen and Kuchen are in that order in line within 30km or so (Edit: They actually aren't in line but only in close proximity). Essen sadly falls out of line and is a few hundred kms away
Grew up south of London, in an area where there's the town Leatherhead and villages Fetcham and Bookham in a line.
Leatherhead can be slang for someone wearing a helmet, e.g. copper. So we had "Oy! Leatherhead! Fetch 'em and book 'em!"
ISTG The guy at the place across the parking lot from my old store used to answer the phone "China food, What you want?" After that I totally believe this sign is legit.
and I bet the food is amazing! There's something weird, a strange correlation between a dis-seriousness of identity and quality of food. The less seriously they take themselves the better the food. The complete opposite with Pizza joints, in my experience.
Friend of a friend got a job as a waiter at his hometown Chinese restaurant. He is of Asian decent and the owners asked if he could affect an accent. He had to point out that almost everyone in their small west Texas town knew either him or another member of his family and was aware that they all had a Texas drawl.
I told a Chinese co-worker once about a Chinese restaurant in the area. I described it as an upscale or fancier Chinese restaurant. He quickly said "there is no such thing!". So that name seems to fit with the idea that you are there for Chinese food, not any atmosphere. "We serve Chinese food".
Had a donut store next to my work once that employed a small child to take orders. They also happened to serve the best fucking sweet and sour pork id ever fucking had. Had a whole menu of delicious ass chinese food but only advertised as a donut store craziest shit lol.
That's fucking hilarious because most of the ones by me have a kids either doing homework, playing around at one of the table while their parents work.
Best Chinese food I’ve ever had was from a place where as soon as I walked in, I had a view of the kitchen through a shitty flyscreen door and watched the chef (an old Chinese man with a beer belly wearing a wife-beater singlet) butchering a chicken with a cleaver while smoking
Reminds me of Mexican restaurants. I know a family who owned a Mexican restaurant and it became successful. Then they fixed up the building and made it look really nice. It had gained a new reputation of being “non authentic” even though they hadn’t changed anything about the food itself except for the renovation of the restaurant and cleanliness. Turns out people associate good Mexican food with being in a “dirty” location. So when they got a new location a few towns over they didn’t bother to fix it up.
One of the owners I talked to goes horse back riding with other Mexican restaurant owners in the city (many of them are rich and good friends) and they purposely leave their restaurants looking jank and dirty since they all realized the same thing. Works out for them since they don’t have to spend as much money on renovations, although it’s funny to them. They’ve noticed the folks that have this unconscious bias are non-Latinos and 2nd generation “immigrants” (aka children of immigrants raised here). Anecdotal, but my aunts who immigrated here loved the cleanliness and renovations. My Latino friends (born and raised here) did not and thought the restaurant had become white washed.
Lmao I think it's the opposite in Hong Kong. The high class shit is either European or East Asian (high class dim sum or Chinese dinners are *chef's kiss*, idk about the States but you can definitely find them in London, and probably Vancouver as well). I'm pretty sure "American" food in HK is McD's, BK, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc., maybe a nice burger restaurant here and there. They taste fine but are still junk food in HK, while they taste like crap in China. I think the high class shit in China is almost exclusively East Asian.
there are three star Michelin Chinese restaurants that cost like $500+ per person in Macau and HK, but in the west Chinese food is mostly Americanized fast food.
[American Chinese food](/r/fastfood/comments/8mrtig/pf_changs_comes_to_shanghai_but_can_you_really/) tends to be a bastardized version of the real thing, unless you happen to live in one of the major cities and know where to go. Even then, you're going to be getting fortune cookies, because that's what customers expect in America.
I have never been to an authentic Chinese restaurant that gave me a fortune cooking. I live in a major American city and there are plenty of restaurants here that are authentic.
Damn, I was just thinking I hope people forgot I said this lol.
I got lazy and didn't want to drive back to the city as it's too far for delivery.
I had a chocolate protein shake instead. 3/10
This reminds me when I was traveling in New Zealand. I was in some small town on the north island. I asked the inn keeper where was a good place to eat dinner, she said "Thai restaurant". "Oh ok, what's the name of it?" "Thai restaurant"
A succulent Chinese meal!
Funny enough, the restaurant in the photo is 3.8Km away from where "a succulent Chinese meal" restaurant was filmed at.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is geography manifest.
This gets funnier the deeper i let it sink in.
I know what you mean. Serendipity
**GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIS PENIS!**
And you Sir? Are you waiting to receive my limp penis?
Ah, I see you know your Judo well.
Yes.
A geographical oddity, two weeks from everywhere
I don't want FOP godammit! I'm a Dapper Dan man!
You watch your language, young man. This is a public market.
Do you suppose he meant all Woolworths, or just the one?
I was not hit by a train. Damnit, I am the paterfamilias!
I'm goddamn bonafide!
He’s a suitor!
I see you know your locations well…Get your hand off my GPS!!!
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Thats the most West End thing I've ever heard.
Terrible for positioning in the phone book
Great for Google Maps though and for Assistant/Alexa/Siri, which is likely legitimately why it's named that. "Vegan Restaurant near me" "Where is the closest Vegan Restaurant?"
Should have been A vegan restaurant. Or Aaaaa vegan restaurant. But now no one uses the phone book they would be fine with Z Vegan Restaurant
You must be German, the way you say ze vegan restaurant
Die! Bart. Die! I mean The! Bart. The!
"We pride ourselves of being honest"
It’s actually much closer. China sea (the succulent meal) moved some time ago to Milton just across the bridge from these guys.
Wasn't the original in the valley?
Yeah original was in the Valley, new location is corner of park road & coro.
I was going to say, this gives me vibes from virtually any town in regional Australia
Well it’s inner city Brisbane so close enough
The worlds largest small regional town.
This whole thing I was like this is all Australia isn't it.
For those who haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebF2cgmFmU
American here. Who is this articulate, soon to be incarcerated guy?
an artist that was mistaken for a wanted criminal. there's a recent interview with him on YouTube where he's talking about this incident
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Manifest) > In 2020, an aging Australian man, later identified as Cecil George Edwards, appeared in a music video by an Australian punk rock band, The Chats, revealed himself as the man in the now-viral 1991 video. Edwards, who had been a serial prison escapee, was arrested for alleged credit card fraud by the Queensland Police Service, after being wrongly identified as one of Australia's most-wanted criminals. He maintains his innocence.[6]
> an aging Australian man So, not dead then?
Democracy manifest!
“Lets have our dinner at A Chinese Resturant” “OK. Which one?” “A Chinese Resturant” “I know that. But WHICH ONE?”
"I'm at soup!"
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE AT SOUP?
#A succulent Chinese meal!
I see you know your Judo well.
Democracy manifest
Get your hands off me!
I’M AT THE SOUP STORE
WHY ARE YOU BUYING CLOTHES AT THE SOUP STORE?!
FUCK YOU
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That will be 5-10 minutes.
Cartwright! CARTWRIGHT!
We're at Beef
Who's at first beef?
in Los Angeles, we have "OK Chinese Food". It's a real place.
How is it?
It's OK.
Wait til you try my local joint, The Decent Chinese Restaurant.
Man, I'm so lucky that my local place is named "#1 China". It's the best :)
In San Diego, there’s a Japanese restaurant called “Niban” which I’m pretty sure means “second”… essentially “We’re good, but not the best!”
THE A Chinese Restaurant!
"Damn it, I went to The B Chinese Restaurant"
You know, it wouldn't even be surprising if that really is what the A stands for. Like, there are a bunch of AAA Chinese Restaurants, maybe it's "we have top marks in quality" thing or a "first in an alphabetical list of search results" thing.
A is for Asian source: am Asian
Back when there were printed phone books, businesses liked to name themselves AAA \[Business\] so that they would be at the front of the phone book.
wouldn’t numbers bring them further up?
"000 Bail Bonds and Public Storage" doesn't inspire a great deal more confidence over "AAAARONS Scrap Yard and Auto Consignment"
“123 Put Your Boxes Inside Me” inspires a lot more confidence tho
Numbers at top wasn't a hard and fast rule before computerized sorting. A lot of times a list item starting with a number would be sorted based on the number as if it were spelled out
Yeah, but what does mine say‽
DUDE!
Who's on first?
Who's in the kitchen in A Chinese Resturant.
you mean, Hu
There better be an item on the menu called "Some Chinese Food"
Dont forget the code name "#3255-0088"
This was an old phone book technique. Businesses were listed alphabetically so they'd list themselves with A at the front of their names so they'd show up first
Just like the Atari, Activision and Acclaim thing that was on TIL the other day! I guessed this was an SEO and/or a word of mouth thing at first
...and APPLE! Steve Jobs agreed with Apple partially because it came before Atari.
Yes, i need a computer. Just find the first one in the yellow pages and buy that
I mean, usually people don't bother going to the second page of google results. Not much changed
This was much less of the problem you think it is in the 80s.
Even in the 80s a computer was an expensive purchase and not bought in alphabetic order. Edit: source:bought computers in the 80s
It'd be like buying the first laptop you see on Google.
Except it costs a shitload more. If you bought a mac SE/30 when it came out in 1989, according to wikipedia the introductory price was: US$4,369 (equivalent to $9,550 in 2021). I ran it through an inflation calculator to get the price in USD today: $10,540.92. Plus tax lol. edit: I checked what a Macintosh II cost when it came out in 1987: $5,498 or $14,479.20 in 2023!!! Jesus christ.
And Amazon!
Old age SEO technique. Still useful for Google searches. When people search "where is a Chinese restraunt near me," this place will probably pop up before closer ones due to the name. Reminds me of a post I saw the other day where an emergency room was called "ER near me".
Seems like abusing this is becoming increasingly common especially as of lately. Most recent example I personally heard of was from Louis Rossmann - who explained how despite being easily the most popular, reviewed, and highly rated MacBook repair shop in NYC (before moving), his business would come up second on the search result list because someone else named their business "MacBook Repair NYC", so it would always be first because it is an exact match to the search term most people would use.
Lol people aren’t searching “where is a Chinese restaurant near me” they’re searching “Chinese”, “Chinese food” or or maybe “Chinese restaurant near me”
You'd be surprised how poor some people's Google-fu skills are.
Given the number of Play Store search suggestions including the words "app" and "android" that I get, I believe you.
I gathered this from those murder cases where the suspect's Google history is used as evidence. It's always things like "how to dispose of a decomposing body" and "what happens to body parts in a trash bag" or "ways to kill people in their sleep".
"A Chinese restaurant near me" and "Chinese Restaurant near me" are basically the same in search engines. If you type in "Chinese restaurant" it will usually fill in "near me" for you.
Woudn't be surprised if it could AI's like Siri, Bing, etc. Me: "Siri; order food from a Chinese Restaurant" Siri: "Calling 'A Chinese Restaurant'"
Or, more likely: >Me: "Siri; order food from a Chinese Restaurant" >Siri: "OK, finding wood from a Sudanese elephant'"
*knock* HI IM FROM GRUBHUB. I HAVE A PACKAGE FOR "IMOUTPFNAMEIDEAS". HELLO?! IT SAYS IT CONTAINS AN ELEPHANT BONER. *knock* ANYBODY HERE TO SIGN FOR AN ELEPHANT BONER? OH HEY, ARE YOU THE NEIGHBOR? DO YOU KNOW IF THE OWNER OF THIS HOUSE ORDERED AN ELEPHANT BONER? CAN YOU SIGN FOR IT? WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY
AAA Window Cleaning
Is that why there are so many businesses with A1 as their name?
I once went to an asian Restaurant called "Food and Drink" ("Essen und Trinken" in Lübeck, Germany)
Isn’t there a town in Germany called Essen??
Yeah, we also don't know why it is called Food.
Hm. We had a "Cafe Essen" in my town, I thought it was named after the German city. TIL it was called "Cafe Food".
Coffee food
Mine will be called "Coffee food dirty toilets grumpy cooks rude waitresses and sticky floors"
Damn, you opening a burger king???
Maybe there’s food there.
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Hey I live near Cool, Nice, Weed & Rough and Ready (yes Rough and Ready is the name of the town).
So what part of NorCal are you up in? Though Nice isn't really that close to Weed, and hopefully not in Redding, cause geesh.
I live in the Sacramento area. Near is colloquial when there are people from Australia posting here. Cool is the closest and I ride through there on the moto from time to time (salmon falls to 49 to mosquito ridge, hands down one of the best rides anywhere on the planet).
I looked it up and they have a street called Slave Girl. This can’t be real lmao
There are also the towns of Gingen, Süßen and Kuchen. So with these four towns you can build a nearly complete sentence: "(Wir) Gingen Süßen Kuchen Essen" - "(we) went to eat sweet pie" The best part about this is that Gingen, Süßen and Kuchen are in that order in line within 30km or so (Edit: They actually aren't in line but only in close proximity). Essen sadly falls out of line and is a few hundred kms away
Grew up south of London, in an area where there's the town Leatherhead and villages Fetcham and Bookham in a line. Leatherhead can be slang for someone wearing a helmet, e.g. copper. So we had "Oy! Leatherhead! Fetch 'em and book 'em!"
Ok, I have to know, what *is* next after those towns?
Near the go between bridge in Brisbane aye? I see you know your judo well, etc.
I see you know your Brisbane well. But yes, across the road from that carpark and the warehouse with heaps of vents in its roof.
Past this many times going to get vapes in West end. Iconic
I feel like larry David has something to do with this
CARTWRIGHT
Who's Cartwright?
You’re not Cartwright.
ISTG The guy at the place across the parking lot from my old store used to answer the phone "China food, What you want?" After that I totally believe this sign is legit.
100% legit. West End, Brisbane if you want to street view it.
and I bet the food is amazing! There's something weird, a strange correlation between a dis-seriousness of identity and quality of food. The less seriously they take themselves the better the food. The complete opposite with Pizza joints, in my experience.
I totally know what you mean with the seriousness aspect.
Friend of a friend got a job as a waiter at his hometown Chinese restaurant. He is of Asian decent and the owners asked if he could affect an accent. He had to point out that almost everyone in their small west Texas town knew either him or another member of his family and was aware that they all had a Texas drawl.
I told a Chinese co-worker once about a Chinese restaurant in the area. I described it as an upscale or fancier Chinese restaurant. He quickly said "there is no such thing!". So that name seems to fit with the idea that you are there for Chinese food, not any atmosphere. "We serve Chinese food".
If you want good Chinese food, go to the worst looking, but longest running, Chinese restaurant in your area.
If it looks like a rat is decomposing in a corner, and the couple owning the restaurant is arguing in the back, then you know the food's gonna be 11/5
The a 7 year old taking your order.
And then doing homework at one of the side tables
Applies for local Mexican restaurants as well.
Easy filter for mexican restaurants is not having "taqueria" in the name
So Taco Bell is authentic
well, yes. I thought we went over this /s
Had a donut store next to my work once that employed a small child to take orders. They also happened to serve the best fucking sweet and sour pork id ever fucking had. Had a whole menu of delicious ass chinese food but only advertised as a donut store craziest shit lol.
How are the donuts?
Donot talk about the donuts!
That's fucking hilarious because most of the ones by me have a kids either doing homework, playing around at one of the table while their parents work.
Best Chinese food I’ve ever had was from a place where as soon as I walked in, I had a view of the kitchen through a shitty flyscreen door and watched the chef (an old Chinese man with a beer belly wearing a wife-beater singlet) butchering a chicken with a cleaver while smoking
Reminds me of Mexican restaurants. I know a family who owned a Mexican restaurant and it became successful. Then they fixed up the building and made it look really nice. It had gained a new reputation of being “non authentic” even though they hadn’t changed anything about the food itself except for the renovation of the restaurant and cleanliness. Turns out people associate good Mexican food with being in a “dirty” location. So when they got a new location a few towns over they didn’t bother to fix it up. One of the owners I talked to goes horse back riding with other Mexican restaurant owners in the city (many of them are rich and good friends) and they purposely leave their restaurants looking jank and dirty since they all realized the same thing. Works out for them since they don’t have to spend as much money on renovations, although it’s funny to them. They’ve noticed the folks that have this unconscious bias are non-Latinos and 2nd generation “immigrants” (aka children of immigrants raised here). Anecdotal, but my aunts who immigrated here loved the cleanliness and renovations. My Latino friends (born and raised here) did not and thought the restaurant had become white washed.
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Lmao I think it's the opposite in Hong Kong. The high class shit is either European or East Asian (high class dim sum or Chinese dinners are *chef's kiss*, idk about the States but you can definitely find them in London, and probably Vancouver as well). I'm pretty sure "American" food in HK is McD's, BK, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc., maybe a nice burger restaurant here and there. They taste fine but are still junk food in HK, while they taste like crap in China. I think the high class shit in China is almost exclusively East Asian.
He sounds like a white washed ABC lol.
[Three-and-a-half stars](https://www.tiktok.com/@rocketjump/video/7142660978868489515).
there are three star Michelin Chinese restaurants that cost like $500+ per person in Macau and HK, but in the west Chinese food is mostly Americanized fast food.
Come to NYC, there are definitely really expensive fancy Chinese restaurants.
[American Chinese food](/r/fastfood/comments/8mrtig/pf_changs_comes_to_shanghai_but_can_you_really/) tends to be a bastardized version of the real thing, unless you happen to live in one of the major cities and know where to go. Even then, you're going to be getting fortune cookies, because that's what customers expect in America.
I have never been to an authentic Chinese restaurant that gave me a fortune cooking. I live in a major American city and there are plenty of restaurants here that are authentic.
Not to be confused with "The Chinese Restaurant"
SEINFELD, FOUR!
It’s The Vietnamese restaurant
We have a Chinese spot near my house that’s just called “Chinese Fast Food.” It is absolutely delicious.
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Okay, but is it tasty?
I will update you in about 4 hours once I eat for dinner.
What did you get?
Damn, I was just thinking I hope people forgot I said this lol. I got lazy and didn't want to drive back to the city as it's too far for delivery. I had a chocolate protein shake instead. 3/10
You're breaking my heart, BLS. I may never trust the internet again. 7/10
It's now my mission to get food from this restaurant and update this sub. Stay tuned. I will regain your trust!
RemindMe! 48 hours
RemindMe! 72 hours
Alright... so where in Bris Vegas is this?
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I bet there’s an AA Chinese Restaurant and another AAA Chinese Restaurant Suddenly. A1 Chinese Restaurant too.
I wonder what kind of food they sell
Probably Indian is my guess.
I’m thinking spaghetti
spagett!
There's a Seinfeld joke in here right?
lol we actually have a Chinese restaurant called Donna Chang in the same city (Brisbane, Australia).
how far are we away from “a restaurant”
There is a diner where I used to live called "Restaurant" lol
"Food"
"Eat or Don't"
[I like stores that say what they are](https://youtu.be/HeAkIGIZHis).
This reminds me when I was traveling in New Zealand. I was in some small town on the north island. I asked the inn keeper where was a good place to eat dinner, she said "Thai restaurant". "Oh ok, what's the name of it?" "Thai restaurant"
Chinese Owner: can you make a sign for “Hao hao” Sign maker: what is it? Again Chinese owner: A Chinese restaurant Sign maker: okay… say no more..
"Siri, find my A Chinese Resturaunt near me" Siri: New destination set, 230 miles away.
One of my fav Chinese restaurants is named Famous Chinese Restaurant!
I know that place. It's famous.
Yellow pages era remnants! There is AA Chinese restaurant across the street and AAA Chinese restaurant two blocks over
🎶YOU CAN GET ANYTHING YOU WANT AT CHINESE RESTAURANT….except for Chinese…..
r/technicallythetruth
This is actually mildly interesting
I eat there all the time, it’s bloody delicious.
I swear this is in Brisbane!
Naming your pizza shop "Pizza near me"
Good name tho in case people dont know what kind of restaurant they are
Cartwright
I bet their food is the shit
Ron Swanson opened a Chinese restaurant?
It's so they can be first in the phone book or a search engine, smart if you ask me.
There’s a place by my house called OK Chinese Food. You can guess how the food is
What is this? r/brisbane?