It can be hard to find a niche in the over crowded restaurant market. All the good ideas seem to be taken, serve good food to rich people, bad food to poor ones and mediocre food to everybody else, in a room with tables, chairs and definitely no dead bodies. Candles usually help too.

Recently, some courageous souls have sought to break all the entrepreneurial rules of culinary success with some strange, odd and downright terrible restaurant ideas. Plenty of which have been terrifically successful.

Such as…



#8. Serving only phallic shaped foods, which happen to be phalluses – Beijing, China

The Terrible Restaurant Idea

When you think about it and Jebus knows we try not to, we probably stuff all kinds of disgusting things into our bodies on a daily basis. Hot dogs, mince, whatever the hell a pomegranate is, all contain things that would probably make us vomit into our mouths before they even got near the killing floor – except the pomegranate, perhaps. Mince is often full of cow faeces, the “banger” in bangers and mash often gets its name because it legally can’t be called a sausage unless it has a certain quantity of meat in it. That quantity, by the way, is any. We get around these things by not thinking about where the food comes from, what’s in it and what it used to look like and instead enjoy the sweet taste of processed animal bits.

So, if a friend told you he was going to open up a restaurant based solely around serving the male genitals of a variety of animals and advertise it as such, you’d probably be more than a little worried about his mental health.

Well, the lovely folk at Guo-Li-Zhuang specilise in dishes prepared from the genitals of male animals, including, but most definitely not limited to, ox, donkey, dog, goat, snake and deer.

For those too squeamish to taste the thoroughly edifying combination of yak penis on a bed of extra-spicey curry you can also try one of their wines which might contain extracts of heart, penis, and blood from a deer.

Why It Works

Well for starters, Guo Li Zuang is a chain of restaurants, therefore not only has this worked in one isolated spot of Beijing but it’s worked in quite a few, including the US where it began in 1956 in the Chinatown area of Atlanta, Georgia. So, if you’re thinking of going on a Beijing holiday then why not make it complete with some yak genitals? As the restaurant points out, eating male private parts helps male potency, which is exactly how science works. Want to swim better, eat fish. Learn to fly, eat chicken wings, be hung like a horse..well you get the picture. Probably, quite literally.

What this really comes down to is one simple fact; Chinese culture is slightly different from other cultures. Slightly very different. There, at least some of the population completely buy into the you are what you eat attitude to cuisine. Thus the restaurants are doing a roaring trade and are filled with rich business men getting penis on tap and even acquiring a souvenir bone to take home with them, if they chance the dog, that is.

#7. Encouraging your customers to eat themselves into a heart attack – Las Vegas, USA

The Terrible Restaurant Idea

It’s not often that burger restaurants declare how bad their food is for you. But in an unusual marketing strategy, Heart Attack Grill’s founder Jon Basso outwardly guarantees that his calorific meals will result in weight gain, back pain, tooth decay and the loss of sexual partners. Their menu boasts an unusually honest description of, Flatliner Fries that are deep-fried in pure lard, 6,000 calorie burgers and the butter fat shake that’s made from pure cream. Plus-sized customers are rewarded for their eating efforts, as those weighing over 350lbs (25 stone) get to eat entirely free. As if they needed more encouragement. Oh, and sharing is prohibited. As is water.

To add to this already unique approach in attracting customers, the Heart Attack Grill’s hospital theme means that waitresses wear super-short nurse outfits and no visitor is allowed to sit until they’ve put on their surgical gown. The nurses take orders as ‘prescriptions’ and fix a tag around your wrist so you don’t forget what you’re having. Imagine a Hooters restaurant within a hospital waiting room.

Showing off their slightly morbid sense of humour, the Grill’s slogan reads: “Taste worth dying for”. In an ironic twist of fate, the restaurant’s spokesperson, 46-stone Blair Rivers, suffered a heart attack last February whilst chowing down on of their Triple Bypass Burgers. Unfortunate, but try not to let it put you off visiting Las Vegas.

Why It Works

Let’s be frank, America is hardly the pinnacle of healthy living. Known as the fattest country in the world, over 30% of all US citizens (that’s ninety-four million people) are obese. Considering fast food restaurants serve an average of 50 million customers every day, it’s no surprise that the Heart Attack Grill still receives a healthy (ahem) amount of visitors. Bad food is in an abundance is the States, it’s just that none of them use their unhealthy properties as a selling point. Perhaps it’s the honesty, the quirky sales approach or the kitsch design. Or heck, maybe it’s just the nurses.