A guy was beaten with a ketchup bottle in there!
During my recent trip to New York City, I made sure to visit quite a few of the many important landmarks. The Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Times Square were just a few of the high profile locations I managed to tour during my brief stay. As impressive as they were, the highlight of my NYC trip was a sojourn to the restaurant featured so prominently on Seinfeld. Because I like both Seinfeld and food, though possibly not in that order. If you've ever watched Seinfeld, you know the place I'm talking about. Or at least you know its sign. In fact, you might only know part of the sign. The coffee shop in question is actually called Tom's Restaurant, but Tom's name is always mercilessly cut out of all the shots shown on Seinfeld. I'm not sure why they wanted to deny Tom this exposure, nor why they insisted on referring to this place as Monk's and claiming it was owned by some guy named Pete. In any case, I hope old Tom got some good publicity from the show, because word on the street is certainly against him. And by word on the street, I am referring to the word spread by some weird, eccentric old guy.
After snapping a few pictures of Tom's Restaurant (hey, if you're gonna take pictures of signs, you might as well make it a famous one!), I began studying the menu posted on the door of the establishment. I had just discovered, much to my surprise, that the place only served one type of cereal when we were acosted by the aforementioned old guy. He seemed incredulous that we were even considering entering Tom's Restaurant, and attempted to dissuade us by claiming that someone had died in one of the bathrooms of an overdose. I wasn't quite sure what the seemingly random old man was getting at with this warning, nor how much this really reflected on the restaurant itself. Noting that we hadn't really been deterred by his warning, the old man decided to strengthen his case by adding this week's quote. Apparently convinced that the mere mention of someone being beaten by a ketchup bottle would be enough to turn us away, the old man strolled off down the street. He didn't bother to explain who had been beaten, who had done the beating or why the beating had been administered in the first place. As such, his warning basically amounted to: be careful; they have ketchup! In BOTTLES! Although this warning didn't succeed in its intended purpose, it did serve to reassure me that the restaurant had ketchup. Which was good, because I rather like ketchup.
Frankly, I'm not convinced that a ketchup bottle is the most fearsome weapon to be found in most restaurants. Admittedly, any scuffle using such a bottle is bound to wind up looking more serious than it is. Mustard just wouldn't have the same effect. So as far as condiments go, ketchup may pose the biggest threat. But given the presence of glasses, plates, and cutlery (not to mention the larger arsenal of knives found in most kitchens), I really don't think that confiscating ketchup bottles is the best way to protect the restaurant-dining public. That idea sounds even a bit too far-fetched for the Department of Homeland Security, unless of course the ketchup in question is Heinz.
On that note, I should probably explain the picture used for this quote. You may not have been aware that W is America's Ketchup. In fact, you may not have even heard mention of it before this current election campaign. That's because it didn't exist until the Republicans noticed that Democratic candidate John Kerry's wife is a big owner of Heinz ketchup. Obviously, this has caused the Bush team to declare Heinz unamerican, and to invent W, a new brand of ketchup to garnish the plates of 'patriotic' Americans everywhere. I think it's great that even ketchup is being used as propaganda for the coming electon. It seems that ketchup might really be a potent weapon, at least when it comes to political advertising. I can just imagine the Bush team planning strategy as they snack on Freedom Fries, smothered in W.