The Typo Bistro
Where the pun never ends.
About this project
The Typo Cafe was a custom project that was auctioned at the Foodstock Art Party benefit in St. Louis, September, 2011. It is an entire menu for a made-up restaurant. Every item has a misspelling & every item is a bad pun, joke, or misinterpretation of one kind or another. Think a Grilled Cheese Sandwich sounds good? It does, unless you drop the “r” and end up with a Gilled Cheese Sandwich (that would be two whole fishes, grilled, with slices of American cheese between them — see the photo inside the menu). It is truly awful and somewhat offensive. Not just the sandwich, but the entire concept.
The piece was a triptych printed on archival inkjet paper and mounted on wood. At the show at Mad Art Gallery, it was presented on the wall with a full table setting installation. Total overkill. But it made some money for Operation Food Search so it was for a good cause. Hat tip to Heath Harris for the accidentally inspiring this.
If you want you can download the PDF to get a better look (22MB).
The backstory of The Typo Bistro
“In the great media upheaval that was the roaring 1920s, Herb ‘Typo’ Tosti lost his newspaper job because a new, exciting, & highly romantic communications technology called ‘skywriting’ began leeching revenue from classified personals ads. Mr. Tosti was forced to return his old career: middle school Typing teacher. But just a few months later he was bitten by the food bug in the school cafeteria. After he recovered, he returned to visit the cooks to see how they were doing. And believe it or not he was bitten by another bug — this time for cooking itself! Sadly, upon his return he was fired for refusing to teach students how to proofread or use correction fluid.
“Down but not out, Mr. Tosti took his newfound passion for cooking home. He had been a popular teacher & former pupils began to stop by to help him work on his food experiments. He quickly proved to be a prolific & inventive culinary genius. Mr. Tosti rapidly typed up ideas for dishes & the children rounded up ingredients & did prep. He sold these meals on street corners while the kids made home deliveries. The food cart was an instant success & he soon opened a restaurant. To this day we carry on Herb’s tradition of serving uniquely fine food. We welcome you to The Typo Bistro — where the pun never ends.