Hello everyone!
A friend of mine is in the process of opening a Spanish restaurant here in San Diego, but we are having a hard time coming up with a really great name....I thought, maybe, I could pick your brains for some ideas, (afterall, 1237 brains is better than 1!)....
The food will be traditional Spanish with beer and wine and it has a great patio. The owner is from the North (Spain) so a location name may be great!
Please post any and all suggestions...Thanks!

How about RioNansa - for the river that borders Asturias and Cantabria (if it's a seafood restaurant) or Covadonga, the place in Asturias where the Reconquista began in year 711 AD when Don Pelayo (and a landslide) ended the Moorish thrust toward the Mar Cantabrico.

Eddie-- I think those toponyms will be hard for non-spanish speakers (rye-oh instead of ree-oh, etc).

Maybe so, but we are talking about San Diego California, on the US - Mexican border. Most people in that area are somewhat conversant with the Spanish language. And if they want a place name for a Spanish restaurant, one would suppose they want an authentic Spanish name (unless, of course the owner is Euskadi, in which case I would suggest Artxnta, or Gallego, in which case I would suggest something in Galego). Perla Asturiana is also one that I have seen.

This naming business for a Spanish restaurant is a tough one - here are some examples of names used here in San Francisco:

Pintxos
Alegrias
Zarzuela
B44 (it is located at 44 Belden Lane - it is a catalan restaurant)
Cafe Picaro
Esperpento
Fina Estampa
Alejandro's
Barcelona (this was my beloved Catalan restaurant that closed last fall - had Gaudi influenced interiors)
Sol y Luna
Bolero

Hope this info helps.

Tomas




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"Salud, amor y pesetas - y tiempo para gozarlos" http://home.att.net/~t.macentee

Tomas, I've been to a few of the places you mentioned, too bad I never experienced Barcelona, sounds like it was a cool place...

Thanks for the ideas everyone, keep them coming!!!

p.s. by the way, is a name of a business only licensed for a particular town, or does it go by state...i.e. using the name Sol y Luna in S.D. when there is one in San Fransisco? Because of the influx of Mexican restaurants in S.D., we want the name to truly reflect the Iberian peninsula.

Wow! San Francisco has that many Spanish restaurants?! We only have two (that I know of) here in Minneapolis...with the exciting names "La Bodega" (for tapas) and "El Mesón."

I would have also said that something Americans can pronounce would be good--perhaps in San Diego things are different, but I really dislike hearing twangy American accents pronouncing things like "girasol" as "jeer-a-sawl."

Something that makes people think of Spain, rather than Latin America, would definitely be nice--all I can come up with at the moment would be references to Don Quixote/Cervantes. Something like "Patio de Dulcinea/Jardín de Dulcinea"? Something to do with windmills? Maybe not...gosh, this is hard!



[This message has been edited by taravb (edited 04-03-2001).]

How about "La Gran Tapa"? Oh...oops...

Seriously, though, how about these:

>Altamira (the famous northern cave)
>Almirante (for seafood?)
>Kaixo (for Basque...means "hello")
>El Cid
>Rocinante...etc. Any >El Molino or any Quixotic reference
>El Hombre Verde (which actually means "dirty old man"...would be a good conversation starter over a nice plato...
>El Picaresco (a novel style perfected in Spain)
>Casa de las Conchas (seafood...Salamanca reference)
>La Torre
>El Gusano...
>La Viña (for your wine cellar)

...and the most blah of all names:
>El Local

Have fun...we'll come up with some more over dinner at Allegria!

About the restaurant name - not sure in California if it follows the same rules for ficticious business names, known as dbo or "doing business as".

Anyway, just so you know, Sol Y Luna has been out of business for two years - they were located downtown in the financial district and for some reason, did not make it. So I guess there would not be confusion between the SF and the SD restaurant.

We've seen many Spanish/Catalan restaurants open here in the last 2 - 3 years. A new one is called Basque in the SOMA district and Cesar is over in Berkeley next to the famous Alice Waters restaurant Chez Panisse.

Tomas

Well, it's official, our friend and my husband are opening the restaurant, and the name is...(drum roll, please)...Costa Brava!!!
They are shooting for a mid-June opening and everyone is invited to the grand opening party!!!!

We are in the process of putting together the final menu and as well as having the traditional fare, we also want to include some items not normally found on Spanish restaurant menus (in the U.S. that is)..The chef is coming here from Santander and I expect great things from him@!!!! But, any suggestions from you all would be great!

I will post more for you L.A. people as to when the exact date of the opening is!!!!