"store" 'restaurant'

[David A. Daniel]

McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, etc. etc. etc - all of the chains, big and
little, and lots of other food-service folks refer to their outlets (let's
be fair, calling them restaurants would be a bit of a stretch) as "stores".
You will even see this in business news items, such as "McDonald's to open
35 new stores in the south-west" sort of thing. One of the chains, don't
remember which - many years ago - ran a publicity campaign that went
something like "better than a restaurant burger at half the price", so they
know who and what they are not, i.e., restaurants.  And, as far as I can
tell, these food-service places do not sell service, they sell items - food
- which makes them a store by any definition anyway.
DAD


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Arnold Zwicky
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 11:22 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "store" 'restaurant'



yesterday i overheard staff of the local Gordon Biersch restaurant
consulting about managing their website and referring to the three Bay
Area restaurants (S.F., Palo Alto, San Jose) as "stores" throughout.
later i asked the manager about this, and he said that was the way
they referred to the locations in-house -- because, after all, they
sold things.  i noted that people generally didn't refer to
restaurants that way, and that there were other places that sold
things but were not referred to as stores (in general, places that
sell services are not referred to as stores).

NOAD2 says "a retail establishment selling items to the public".  that
excludes places that sell services, and also wholesalers, but there's
still a fairly big gray area, turning on what counts as an "item".
what about art galleries, sandwich shops, ... and restaurants?  (i see
that NOAD2 treats delicatessens as a type of store.)

has anyone experienced "store" referring to a restaurant?

arnold

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org