The Cape Cod Retail/Location Name-O-Matic
You never know when you might find yourself in Cape Cod, struggling to christen a new restaurant, antique store, street, or cluster of swayback-roofed pale blue motel cottages. It’s a lot of pressure, but help has arrived in the form of the Cape Cod Retail/Location Name-O-Matic. Just select a word (or two!) from Column A, then a word from Column B — that’s it! No need to get creative, thumbing your thesaurus for non-medical-sounding synonyms for “seafood”; the Cape Cod Retail/Location Name-O-Matic is a trusted authority in seaside tourist-destination monikers dating back to the eighteenth century.
And if you wind up with a name that doesn’t make much sense at first glance, don’t get discouraged — seize the opportunity to penetrate one of the Cape’s underserved arts or activities markets. Perhaps “Boggy Bog” isn’t the best name for a hospitality establishment, but why limit yourself? It’s a fantastic band name! And why not add yourself to Provincetown’s excellent selection of adult shops with a store called “Captain’s Barnacle”? The fact that nobody will have the faintest idea what sort of business the “Nauset Neck” enterprise might engage in frees you up to offer anything from acupressure massage to mini-golf — and who wouldn’t appreciate the bluntness of “Land Claw Real Estate”?
Still stuck? Add an ” ‘n’ ” to break the block and quaintify your venture.
Column A
Bayside
Boggy
Breezy
Bridge
Candle
Captain’s
Chowder
Clam
Cook(e)’s
Crab
Cranberry
Deck
Dune
Governor Prence
Land
Lighthouse
Lobster
Mariner’s
Nauset
Olde
Oyster
Rocky
Salty
Sandy
Ship’s
Shore
Surf
Ye Olde
Column B
Barnacle
Beach
Boat
Bog
Breeze
Catch
Claw
Compass
Cottage
Dunes
House
Hut
Light
Lobster
Lubber
Mast
Neck
Net
Point
Pool
Putt-Putt
Rock
Sand
Seafood
Shack
Shell
Ship
Sound
Tavern(e)
Tide
Trap
[with thanks to Fametracker]
Tags: travel
Readers should feel free to “hee” about the dirty potential of some of the combinations. I’m sure there’s a Lindsay Lohan joke to be made about “Crab Trap,” for example.
Interestingly, this is also how native Cape Codders form their porn names.
I went to Cranberry Barnacle just the other day. They had a good sale and I think I really made out!
A friend of mine did something similar for naming streets in suburban subdivisions: http://spam-o-matic.org/humor/suburbanhelper.htm
So true! This applies to other places than Cape Cod, though- it could be any seaside New England town.
(hee, “made out”)
I don’t remember if it’s like this down the shore, but it probably is; just swap “Clinton” for “Prence” and add “skeeball” to Column B.
Also, the Suburban Helper would name 70% of the streets in my hometown…and my hometown itself…and the name it went by before the current one, I think. Hilarious.
Hee! As a Wisconsin girl, I can attest to the fact that this also works in Door County. Shore Mast is way funnier to me than it should be, but it’s early and I haven’t started the caffeine IV yet.
As for the suburban names, I thought the tried-and-true method was to name your subdivision for what was razed in order to build it?
May I nominate “Shoppe”, spelled like that, to the Column B list? I saw lots of those on visits to my grandma on the Cape.
Heh. Heh. “Mariner’s Lubber.”
Heeeeeh.
Okay, am done now. Well, except for “Boggy Mast.” Now I’m done. Heh!
Oo, and how about “Quahog”?
And Barn …As in The Pizza Barn (real), Gift Barn (real), and Ice Cream Silo. Route 6 wouldn’t be the same without it. One stop shopping for tropical
shells, penny candy, and really disturbing figurines.
My fiance (from Cleveland) and I had a “mini-golf” vs. “putt-putt” conversation a few weeks ago while on Cape Cod (I grew up in NJ and went to the Cape every summer; we live in NC) — we were trying to figure out the regional distinctions.
And if someone could fill me in on the wisdom behind the store name “Soft as a Grape”, please do — that store name used to freak me the hell out when I’d see it in Orleans. Now seems to be in Provincetown. They really needed the help of an “-O-Matic”.
Haha! I could match those names up all afternoon…”Ye Olde Boggy Lubber ‘n’ Barnacle” is one of my faves. I also second the “Shoppe” nomination – I remember a lot of “shoppes” in Wildwood and Cape May, NJ from family vacations in the early 1980s.
Oh, Lord, now I’m matching names within categories. I need a life. A life that involves the “Beach Lubber’s Neck” and “Captain Cooke’s Salty Oyster.” A “Putt-Putt Tavern” would be pretty awesome, too.
Make me go away, please. This could be a trainwreck of minor proportions!
…QUAHOG. Can’t believe I forgot that one.
My friend came up with something similar for naming towns in Southern California.
I must request that “Cove” be added to Column B. Chowder Cove! Boggy Cove! Plus, one has to honor Pirate’s Cove, the MOTHER of all tacky, blue-waterfall-enhanced, nautical-themed, kid-overrun, congesting-traffic-within-five-miles-on-a-cloudy-day mini-golf places on Route 28. (Though I realize it’s a franchise, so it doesn’t really count.)
My rustic Cape business that will probably sell antiques, T-shirts, and/or ice cream is going to be called The Clam Dunes. Hee hee. Clam dunes. Or possibly Clam Cottage. Really, “clam” is good with anything.
“Land” has a lot of potential as well. LAND LOBSTER!!
Oh, god, that is SO true. My boyfriend lives in Plymouth and I cannot keep all those damn “Lobster ____” shops straight. My responses are like, “Ok, is that the Lobster one with the sandwiches or the Lobster one with the butcher block or what?” All we need is Lobster Lobster and the insanity will be complete. I even had to correct him last time I visited because he got them mixed up, too, and he’s lived there all his life.
Forgetting how many Sarahs there are! (Now adding a “Mac” since posting the Quahog/Gift Barn post above.)
Does anyone remember that radio jingle for the long-defunct Thompson’s Clam Bar (actual name, not -O-Maticized)? I CRAVE having audio of that… I used to hear it on Cape 104 or whichever station it was that got reliable reception out in North Eastham … mid-eighties to whenever it closed). It was possibly authentically “old-timey” — definitely at least faux old-timey — it was a call and response thing with a guy and a woman, sort of Andrews Sisters -esque:
Guy: “Hey, where ya going?”/Gal [because she SEEMED like a “gal”]: “I’m going to Thompson’s Clam Bar, cause that’s where the tastiest clams are.”/Guy: “Is the seafood good?” [which… didn’t she just say that?] /Gal: “The best, by far!”/Both: “So lets’s go! …To Thompson’s Clam Bar!” …and then, hilariously, the guy would just sort of add on, still vaguely in time with the song, “In Harwichport.”
OH, my god. …So, so awesome. It haunts my dreams! Well, not really, but I remember it every summer for a week or so while I’m there, and I torture my loved ones with my attempts to recreate it.
Agreed: a short stretch of Rte. 6 alone offers the Lobster Shanty (Shanty!), Lobster Pool, and Lobster Claw (the latter near Governor’s Prence, I believe.) But yeah; we get it: Cape Cod is very lobster-y. Noted.
Maybe I’m answering my own (previous) question about “Soft as a Grape” – but I guess you either need a memorably inscrutable name, or a mind-invading annoying jingle. Otherwise it’s all a blur of bogs and lobsters. THE LOBSTER BOG! Scary. Could be where that land lobster waits for its prey.
COVE.
…SHANTY!
And the Ice Cream Silo has the shittiest ice cream on the Cape. Everyone else manages to serve dairy products free of sand; why can’t they get the hang of it?
And and: not just one Lobster Pool; two of them, the one near the traffic circle, and the Eastham Lobster Pool with the instructional placemats.
The Lobster Claw’s chowder is awesome.
I haven’t had ice cream from there in ages, but thanks for the warning.
The ol’ Silo is oddly non-advertise-y of their product to drivers-by — I only know what it is from childhood mini-golf under the watchful eye of that fiberglass rabbit, but I recently noticed that that ice cream cone icon on the building is … not really reminiscent of ice cream, I don’t think. Very jaggy lines. Like, if an ice cream cone had to suddenly be a mascot for the NFL –GRRRRRR!!! X-treme. So perhaps the sand is part of that? Hardcore; gritty.
We only went to the Family Barn complex to try to find the weirdest possible personalized sounveniers for co-workers. An ongoing quest.
We were lovin’ some Nauset Ice Cream Cafe near the pie shop in Orleans. Huge props for their orange sherbet (or sherbert, as I stubbornly call it) — a double scoop of that with chocolate made an insanely good cone. With sprinkles, of course, for texture fun. The finace got a sundae with a blondie and dark chocolate ice cream and… You know. More ice cream in one week than usual, exponentially so.
I’m not really a seafood lover (I know. I KNOW! Summertime on Cape Cod, it’s a shame, and blahdee blah) but the fiance got a lobster roll from The Friendly … whatever that fish market is near Idle Times and the liquor store … and he seemed quite pleased.
Jennifer, the one I always heard for naming towns in Southern California is put together a type of tree with a body of water, i.e. Oak Creek, or Pine Lakes, or Maple Pond.
You know, I think there’s an Oak Creek down the street from me…
Oh Lord, my boyfriend and I are planning on going to Cape Cod in October for my birthday, and I’m soooo bringing this list along to see how many are actually real. Thanks Sars!
To Sarah Mac – here is a link to the Thompson’s Clam Bar jingle. I used to love that place! Link: http://odeo.com/audio/44481/view
To Lars –
HOLY …. Oh my wow.
I confess – I was only there maybe once as a child, but that jingle jangled in my head during many a summer afterward.
Thank you so much — haven’t checked TN in a while but I’m glad I looked back to see if there were any more Cape-related messages. You’re awesome! That’s hilarious.
To Lars (and Sars!) — Re: TCB jingle/time capsule fun…
That was crazy! I don’t think I ever heard the long version — I can see that lengthy instrumental section would have been the first casualty of editing, cost-wise. Seafood = Good message and the town shout-out were all I remember hearing. (Uh, and regrettably, singing.) But there was like, story arc in that! Impressive and strange. They really let that plot unfold.
That’s definitely going on a summer mix somewhere in my future… Or more specifically, a mix I make for someone ELSE. Thanks again for the tip!