A Joint by Any OTHER Name?

I have come to realize that at my age, it is easy to become confused. 

As a bi-pedal Carbon-based life form that stands erect, likes a regular beer before, during and after Happy Hour at the local Eeast Meadow watering hole and communicates by starting each sentence with the word “Sport” or “Dude”, life can get complicated.

But I have found that there are other forces, possibly the ones that sneak in at night and turn our coat hangers the opposite way, at work. And it would be so much easier to identify them if they whistled while they worked. Changing Technologies and text messaging recently top my list of things that make me go “What chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?” 

But my recent focus is the wonderment- when it comes to  the naming and location choosing of a restaurant or eatery. Now in this troubled economy, it is tough to keep almost any business in the black...unless maybe you are selling gasoline. No matter how good a food outlet or pub is, it can still go belly up , if there is not a blocks long line of customers waiting to get in, likethe lines at the new Sonic in Deer Park.  

But it is particularly bewildering to me to have different restaurants, that are not part of the same franchised  chain, with the same name, in the same town at the same time. Think “Ray’s Original Pizzerias in NYC.” There must be 16 different ones that are not related in any way .    

You see, soon East Meadow will be getting two new restaurants by the same name approximately three blocks apart on Hempstead Turnpike. And they will both be called “Jake’s.”  The first one will be where the old Runyon’s was . This was a great establishment where many of the East Meadowers (or is it East Meadowites?) met in the past to eat and drink and talk about sports, fashion, sports, other towns, sports and my personal arch villain, Dr Dillon.

More recently known as “Jonny 5’s” - which short circuited faster than Steve Guttenberg’s career after “3 Men and a Baby.” From what I hear  This "Jake’s" will still be a great meeting place for residents to hang and harangue, with quality cuisine, excellent slabs of marinated choice cuts of red meat and abundant alcohol. A place serving culinary delights to decked out adults that  can sit out on the deck and watch traffic wiz by, as they travel to and from the  hoity-toity Hamptons on a humid summer night.

However , if you stay on the same side of the street and travel three blocks east you will also find another “Jake’s” (and the source of my discombobulation). This Jake’s  will be filling the long vacant spot of “Jasmine Garden,” a long established, award winning East Meadow Asian restaurant that went by the wayside for reason I cannot share now.

Nestled  between Uncle Guiseppe’s Super Duper Market  and Lacrosse Unlimited,  this “Jake’s” will be a premiere burger koint and is part of a national chain of SLO-FOOD Burger Joints similar to “CheeBurger,CheeBurger” and “ Five Guys Burgers,” not the style of Mickey D’s and the Burger Czar.

This wayside, wayback Meat-ery is not so way off target from what I hear. Kids, like my son and his buds will love it, as they will have 20 years to worry about their cardiologist rolling their eyes as they view their most recent cholesterol levels from the Quest lab sheet and up their dosage of Lipitor.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there will be healthy nosh too- like veggie burgers, fresh salads and fish. BUT let’s not kid ourselves. The reason to dock your Jedi podracer here is for the gathered and slathered chili cheese fries and the hand made, triple stacked Aorta burger. But whichever I choose (and you too should visit both and visit often as we like to support our neighborhood taverns or luncheonettes) I will do carefully and so should you. Make sure that if you are meeting friends, conducting a business or club meeting or joining a new acquaintance from e-Harmony, to be specific with which exact  location you will be at, this way you avoid a potential awkward situation.

Much like the guy next to me with the Dos Equis and lime , thinking actor Adam Baldwin of the NBC show "Chuck" is really one of the LI acting Baldwin Brothers ( which apparently are Daniel, Alec, Stephen and Billy). Confusing, YES!