New Hampshire City Deems Pho Restaurant's Punny Name 'Offensive'

The city of Keene is displaying a disappointing lack of sense of humor in its opposition to what is objectively a solid pun.

https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/zmddn9/new-hampshire-city-deems-pho-restaurants-punny-name-offensive

Isabelle Jolie’s restaurant is supposed to open March 1, but instead of checking her inventory and proofreading the menu and doing all of those almost-last-minute things, she’s removing the restaurant’s sign from its windows and is dealing with the possibility that she’ll have to change the name entirely.

This all started because although Jolie has a sense of humor, the city of Keene, New Hampshire apparently does not. According to The Keene Sentinel, when Jolie signed her paperwork and submitted it to assorted city officials, she let them know that she’d be calling her Vietnamese joint Pho Keene Great. That’s exactly the kind of pun you’d both want and expect from a New Hampshire pho restaurant, but Keene city officials aren’t laughing.

“I have told Ms. Jolie that the name could be
problematic,” city manager Elizabeth Dragon told MUNCHIES. “It is a play on words meant to be profanity. I did get some complaints when the temporary sign was put up, and it was only up for a short time.”

But Dragon explained that, in addition to the name, Jolie didn’t get the proper approval before she hung her temporary sign in the window. “The restaurant lease has a requirement to get property owner’s permission before installing any signage, lettering, posters or window treatments visible from the exterior,” she said, adding that in this case, the city is the property owner. “She is leasing a commercial space which is attached to City Hall.”