Mascot Naming is an Olympian Task

Wenlock and Mandeville. The names don’t exactly roll off the tongue like Mickey Mouse, Papa Smurf or Spongebob Squarepants. But those are the just unveiled names of the mascots for the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics.

Any you know what, even though it doesn’t seem to have the staying power of a Bart Simpson, I like these names.

Just think about the brainstorming and approval process they must’ve gone through. You can’t offend anybody (in about 75 different languages), it should be playful and original, child-friendly, loveable, and it should relate to or have some sort of meaning for the “Olympic Spirit.”

Wenlock is named after Much Wenlock, a town about four miles outside of London that helped inspire the modern Olympics with its own local games. Mandeville is named after Stoke Mandeville, a town about 45 miles from London where the Paralympic movement started. A little bit forced? Sure. But when you consider all the parameters, test-marketing, and other creative paths they could’ve taken, these mascot names earn a Bronze Medal. Maybe even a Silver.

Now we just need to add a little fuzzy fur. And maybe an ear, nose or mouth. And perhaps a second eye. On second thought, why not just make Poochie the Dog the Olympic mascot.

The Hot & Cold Life of a Soup Cafe

I need to start with a major disclaimer: This blog entry is mostly based on my reasonable assumptions, perception, and sometime foggy memory, with very little knowledge of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the plight of The Bucktown Soup Café.

After a few excited, but preliminary write-ups in RedEye and TimeOut, the Bucktown Soup Café opened up about a year ago. The initial buzz on the place was about how the owner used to be involved in the fast-paced finance/hedge fund world, and now he was taking his mother’s/grandmother’s/aunt’s soup recipes, adding a few of his own, and opening up The Bucktown Soup Café. I applaud him for pursuing his dream.

Always a fan of small, family business, I went there within the first few months. This was a time when the owner still had aspirations of drawing a mix of hippies and yuppies to a casual, upscale environment where they could enjoy delicious, gourmet soup. About a dozen different varieties were cycled in regularly. The few that I’ve either sampled or ordered were delicious, and assume it’s easy to come by positive reviews for all varieties.

But it was very over-priced for what amounted to a soup-based lunch or a starter bowl to take home to round out your own home-cooked meal. This was a place that truly believed its marquee soups and a little world-of-mouth would be all it needed to get people to treat it like a destination restaurant. At least I assume so, because as great of a location that is Bucktown, this café’s specific location seems slightly less than ideal to survive solely on neighborhood and shopping foot traffic.

But these prices for very good but not “to-die-for” quality, I’ve felt very little urgency to go back. And imagine most foodies feel the same way.

Over the course of the past year-plus, I’ve walked by the place pretty regularly in 0 degrees, 90 degrees, night, day, you name it (aah, the joy of city-dog ownership). And I’ve seen The Bucktown Soup Cafe crowded. What I’ve seen is a place that is slowly evolving into the type of hodgepodge place that doesn’t really stand for anything. First they added some Good Humor ice cream to draw crowds in the summer, and followed it up with a big sidewalk sign promoting it. Then they started tacking up signs on the window announcing that they’ve added sandwiches. Anybody looking at the name of this place would have to assume the sandwiches are pedestrian and unmemorable. Now I see hand-written signs out front that say things like “$2 Tuesdays.”

These seem like signs of slow desperation. Opening up a restaurant, especially in this economy, is tough. But the whole vibe of the place to those of us passing by seems all over the board. As if its trying to be a little bit of everything for everybody. But in reality, its unsure of what exactly it should be. It seems like the owner doesn’t have the restaurant/small business/casual dining experience, so he’s trying to throw anything that’ll stick and help keep his business afloat.

I guess its not enough to do one thing really, really well (in this case, making soup). You need the right mix of marketing savvy, restaurant savvy and confidence to stick with your vision. But what do I know, I’m not the guy that poured my savings into the place.