112 Eatery.
Kafe 421.
20.21.
So many restaurants now have numbers in their names it's hard to
keep count. And keeping them straight is getting harder and harder.
From Five in Minneapolis to 128 Café in St. Paul, numerals in a
restaurant name are as common as tuna tartare on a menu.
"Numbers are a national trend," says Tom Julian, trend analyst for
Fallon, an advertising agency in Minneapolis. "It's become an insider
reference, a hip way of expressing an attitude or neighborhood. People
have to figure you out."
But Mary Piecewicz (she goes by the name mary p), a Minne-apolis
real-estate agent and numerologist, says numbers are more than just the
latest status symbol. They speak a universal language, each with a
different vibration, and that's why many people are subconsciously
attracted to certain numbers.
Take, for instance, 20.21, the restaurant named for Walker Art
Center's collection of 20th- and 21st-century art and the restaurant's
contemporary East-West food. "The numbers add up to five, and five is a
unique, innovative number, like a star pointing in all directions,"
Piecewicz says. "So, 20.21 is open to all possibilities — cutting edge."
Isaac Becker and Nancy St. Pierre, who opened the tiny 112 Eatery
earlier this year, say they believed using their address added the
right panache.
"Isaac wanted to just call it the Eatery, but it seemed too simple,"
St. Pierre says. "But the two words together sounded good to us."
Their instincts were right; the restaurant has been a hotspot since day one.
For some, numbers rationalizations speak loud and clear. David Fhima
runs Louis XIII in Edina and is now working on his next project: Table
One in Minneapolis. "Numbers have a way of deformalizing a concept," he
says.
But it all depends on how the numbers are written and how they're
used. "I'm not crazy about numbers by themselves," Fhima says. "But a
number with an association sends a hip message that this is a fun place
to be."
Georgia Sander chose the name Kafe 421 for her Dinkytown restaurant
not only because it reflects the address but also because 421 seemed
like a lucky number. Later, someone told her that a seven (4+2+1) is
too hard-edged and she should change the name. But Sanders stood her
ground.
"I'm Greek, and we're superstitious," she says. "But I don't want to get too superstitious."
Little did Natalie Obee know nine years ago, when she came up with
the name 128 Café for her Mac-Groveland restaurant, that she would be
ahead of a trend. She and her husband, Brock, chose the name because
the numbers looked cool on the computer when they were trying to come
up with a logo and because, quite frankly, they were desperate.
"It was kind of serendipity," Obee says. "We had so many other
things on our minds, plus we were going into this grungy basement, and
the name was nondescript enough that people could come in and be
surprised."
About six months later, Obee realized 128 was also the date of her
wedding anniversary, Jan. 28. Then, after her second child was born, it
dawned on her their family birthdates are the 24th, 25th, 26th and
27th. "What an ironic twist," Obee says. "The odds of that many numbers
figuring pretty strongly in my life."
Kathie Jenkins can be reached at 651-228-5585 or kjenkins@ pioneerpress.com.
