Chantel Harewood, 18, a college student who grew up in the neighborhood, ordered food from Mr. Jabbar and said she liked the new name. “Why not? It’s history,” she said. “All these stereotypes. People got to relax.”

However, Mr. Jabbar said that the restaurant was bowing to the pressure, and that it would be renamed Popular Fried Chicken by the weekend. Ms. Harewood did not think much of the new name. “That’s so blah, predictable, typical,” she said. The current name, she added, gave her “pride.”

In the Au Monde Chic barbershop, where Mr. Obama’s portrait hung on a back wall, Alnord Benoit cut a customer’s hair and called the name change “disrespectful.”

“Did he get permission from Obama?” Mr. Benoit asked.

In a nearby computer store, the manager, Earl Dennis, jokingly said he should rename his place Obama’s Computer Store. “It’s publicity,” Mr. Dennis said. Of the chicken restaurant, he said, “I’m not eating there.”

Competition might have played some role in the new name. Crown Fried Chicken is across the street, owned by Osman Mohibi, 47, an Afghan immigrant. He keeps pictures of Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. taped to the plexiglass divider by the cash register.

Mr. Mohibi said his competitor’s misstep was winning new customers for Crown Fried Chicken. “He used the name,” Mr. Mohibi said of the owner. “He used black people.”

Kevin McCall, one of the community organizers who confronted Obama Fried Chicken’s owner, said he received calls from residents disturbed by the sign, and quickly contacted the owner to tell him it was “very offensive to African-Americans.”