The restaurant business back home is pretty stiff. On top of trying to lure people away from fast food establishments, restaurants also have to deal with a pretty strict de facto segregation policy. Growing up, I quickly saw that there Black restaurants and White restaurants, and patrons of one didn’t dare frequent the other because there’s no telling what may happen. I didn’t take much stock in that until Sperm Donor decided to take the family out to this British hunting lodge themed restaurant called Fox and Hound, and I saw the waiter toss our plates of food onto the table, talk down to my mother and father and heard someone at an adjacent table ask the waiter what those niggers were doing here.

I think I was fifteen at the time.

The fortunate thing is that most of those restaurants eventually closed down and moved shop…again as part of de facto segregation. The long time segregationist White mayor of the town was unseated by a Black incumbent, and a lot of businesses and people moved about 5 miles up the highway and founded a new town. Sounds like some shit out of a Simpsons episode, doesn’t it? But it happened.

Back to the restaurant business.

So while you had some restaurants blocking people of an entire race (I still have to roll my eyes at that notion happening outside of the 50s and 60s), some other niche restaurants tried to open up and grab those other hungry consumers. Including the city’s first Asian restaurant – China Cook.

China Cook served the standard Asian restaurant fares: moo goo gai pan, lo mein, and various chicken dishes. But a lot of the population was skeptical about it since the restaurant was owned by the only Asian family in town. A few good reviews in the local paper had people going there all the time, driving business away from other restaurants. China Cook, seeing that people were only ordering about three or four things off of their menu (chicken teriyaki, fried shrimp, sweet and sour chicken and chicken wings), they decided to offer up a mix of different foods, including the standard American grill fare.

And that’s when the catburger rumor started.

You see, China Cook was two blocks away from the local Humane Society, and all it took was one caterng job to send China Cook out of business. The local band boosters asked the restaurant to cater a football homecoming party. Now, China Cook was a small restaurant, and really not equipped to handle a catering job with more than maybe 30 people. Hell, their restaurant only sat 45! Something should be pretty suspect when they bring in hot food in thermal coolers, and don’t have any sterno or metal pans set up for serving. The food, from what I remember, was actually pretty good. The hamburgers were certainly the hit of the event, and they managed to run out of food in a little under an hour.

The next day, everyone was sick with a stomach virus. Some overzealous parent claimed that the restaurant served her cat, and the media ran with it. Within a month, China Cook was out of business on account of health code violations. The city hasn’t had an Asian restaurant since.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the neanderthals in my home town also ran a vegetarian restaurant that served soy burgers out of business on the claims that "soy meat ain't real meat" and that it's "poisoning out children".

*sigh*

And in case the whole catburger thing ain't some bullshit on a bun, why just ask Burger and Fries here.

Him not cheezburger.