Comment by keerthiko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by keerthiko | Hacker News Reader

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My favorites are

- Paris Baguette: a Korean bakery chain, selling 50-50 asian and western confections but no baguettes, pretending to be French, most popular in America.

- Bondi Sushi: a New York chain, named for a beach in Australia, for a Japanese specialty.

- Outback steakhouse: American chain named for a Australian region, and depending where you are, full of Canadian imagery including mooses and snow and sleds (I went in Boston).

Paris Baguette makes sense to me, it draws a lot of people who think they're getting a French bakery, but discover and enjoy the (novel-to-them) asian pastries in the process. As a non-white American, I have always been confused why Americans love appropriating Australian branding for restaurants? Who exactly does that appeal to, and to discover what? Evidently it offends Australians. It means nothing to me who doesn't really know what aspect of Australia I would seek from such places (sushi? steak?), so it doesn't seem meant to draw people who not affiliated with Australia somehow.

Maybe Australians cofounded these places in America? Or just Americans who had life-defining experiences in Australian locations and came back to start restaurants in honor of those places? I have not dug too deep into their origins.

> Maybe Australians cofounded these places in America? Or just Americans who had life-defining experiences in Australian locations and came back to start restaurants in honor of those places? I have not dug too deep into their origins.

As far as I am aware, Australians had nothing to do with the founding of Outback Steakhouse, and its founders had nothing to with Australia. A group of Americans in Florida in 1988 wanted to open a restaurant, and were looking for a distinctive theme or branding. And the Crocodile Dundee film had been a big hit in the US a couple of years earlier, and so they decided to appropriate the stereotypes of Australia it represents as the basis of their branding. I’m not aware any of them had any personal connection to Australia at all. If it wasn’t for the popularity of that film, they probably would have picked a different theme for their restaurant instead

Paris Baguette was contextualized to me by friends as a sort of Korean parody of a french patisserie. It seems there's a lot of this throughout east Asia, e.g. burgers / American style southern restaurants in Japan, although some of these seem more authentic than Paris Baguette.

> full of Canadian imagery including mooses and snow and sleds (I went in Boston).

That just sounds like northeast, Appalachian USA things.

We have Paris Baguette in Singapore as well. They aren't the only faux European chain / brand here, that combination seems quite popular.

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