Fictional Restaurant Menus
Have you ever wanted to visit a fictional iconic restaurant? Grab a burger at Bob’s Burger? Split a waffle at JJs Diner? Order a latte at Central Perk? As BentoBox designers, day-to-day we’re tasked with designing websites inspired by restaurants’ menus to translate their brand experience to their web presence. To break the monotony, we challenged ourselves to design branding and menus inspired by some of our favorite restaurants from pop culture.
Mudka’s Meat Hut
Looking at a list of fictional Disney restaurants, I saw the name “Mudka’s Meat Hut” and laughed. It’s a silly detail from The Emperor’s New Groove, an underrated Disney movie. It’s also the stage of a hilarious scene in the film where a revolving kitchen door causes a lot of chaos.
I imagined it as a family-owned joint, with kitschy patterns and chunky fonts in bright colors. The logo was inspired by the restaurant’s large sign in the movie, an Incan man holding a dead chameleon on a platter. The color scheme channeled the main character Kuzco’s red tunic and bright yellow crown. Being a diner, I wanted to use a checkered pattern in a soft blue to give the place a retro feel. I added some design elements like badges and crowns to make the menu more fun, as well as a “No Llamas” rule inspired by what went down at the restaurant. To make sure the menu items were legible among all these design elements, I used a nice chunky font as the section header and a simple sans serif for the item and description.
Brand-wise, a place named Mudka’s Meat Hut isn’t going to be like a graceful farm-to-table restaurant with the ancient Incan equivalent of 3 Michelin stars. It’s going to have meat, and that’s about it. When it came to creating menu items, a lot of them were lifted from the scene itself — Kronk suddenly finds himself as a cook, and is asked to make things like fried liver and onions and steak, cut in the shape of a trout. A lot of the menu items came from there, as well as from some research into ingredients used in ancient Incan times.
Check out our menu and be sure to stop by Mudka’s Meat Hut for some tasty meat in a (hopefully) llama-free setting!
Designed and Written by Robine Nucum
The Gold Room
Contained within the walls of The Overlook Hotel, The Gold Room is said to be the most haunted room in The Shining. A ballroom where guests in the early 1920s would gather and drink the night away, or for Jack Torrance’s sake, make bad decisions.
Knowing the ballroom’s purpose and history, I decided to create a cocktail menu filled with mysterious and sophisticated drinks from the ’20s. I developed the logo out of the repetition of two of these cocktails. I realized once connected, they created a framework that felt like a modern version of the original Gold Room plaque. I chose to then continue the linear theme by bordering off the sections for each cocktail. Each one with its own story and ties back to the famous events at The Overlook Hotel. Since each cocktail has a creative name that may not be easily distinguishable, I also added illustrations to further visualize the type of cocktail one could expect to receive.
The final touches were the color palette and typography. The original plaque had a palette of gold, dark grey, and crimson. I didn’t find the need to stray from this since it felt true to the decade but also added to the dark vibe I was hoping to achieve. For typography, I went with a combination of two art-deco fonts to continue to transport the guests to the 1920s. The Gold Room is a unique place that holds many secrets. Sit down, stay awhile, and be sure to enjoy your stay at The Overlook Hotel.
Oh! And while you’re here, have a drink on us. Choose wisely.
Designed and Written by Kayla Scheidel
The Malt Shop
Located in Coolsville, USA, The Malt Shop is a local hangout that is home to the best group of teen detectives pop culture has ever seen: Mystery Inc. The restaurant is often a spot for Scooby-Doo and the Gang to unwind in between foiling the plans of people disguised as monsters. The reason I chose to design a menu for The Malt Shop, in addition to being the Gang’s go-to place, is because there exists no other characters in television history who appreciate food more than Shaggy Rogers and Scooby-Doo.
The menu consists of actual food items that the pair have been seen eating together throughout the series. This includes double-fudge sundaes with pickles, liverwurst a la mode, and of course Shaggy’s iconic super duper sandwich, which comes complete with Scooby Snacks if you choose to get the meddling kid’s special. For our more adventurous eaters you can also score yourself some pickled vampire wings, werewolf snacks, or fried moonbeams. If you’re feeling extra hungry make sure you make your meal a monster for an additional $5!
Since “Scooby-Doo Where Are You?”, first premiered in 1969, I decided to create a menu with a vintage feel. To achieve this I used retro fonts and a brown/beige color palette inspired by the actual facade of The Malt Shop. I kept the red from the original sign and also added in the teal of the mystery machine as accent colors. Much of the menu design came from the illustration approach I took on the exterior of the restaurant. The use of borders and various smaller illustrations incorporated into it can be attributed to this. Bad guys beware! Our parking lot is large enough to accommodate vans housing even the most complicated monster-catching traps!
You can’t solve mysteries on an empty stomach, order now!
Designed and Written by James Coviello
Good Burger
“Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?” These words bring me back to the easy-going days of Gameboy Pockets, color-blocked windbreaker sets and endless marathons of Nickelodeon programming. Good Burger is a restaurant originally featured in Nickelodeon’s marquee sketch comedy show “All That” starring Kel Mitchell as Ed, an airhead fast food restaurant cashier, hilariously interacting with guests. The sketch eventually expanded into a Hollywood movie with a more serious storyline, but the original rendition of it on Nickelodeon tv is truly undefeated!
I reimagined Good Burger as a more well-put-together fast-casual dining experience, with a nod to old school diners and fast food joints. In honoring the wacky nature of Ed and the Good Burger skits, a primary feature of this menu design is alternating typefaces within section titles for a whimsical vibe from the jump. Bordering the menu is a striped pattern inspired by the Good Burger Uniform.
The Good Burger logo honors the original logo featured in the movie, with a signature swooshing G, which I’ve also utilized as a standalone mark. All menu items featured in this design are legitimate Good Burger items as featured in the tv show and movie. However, a brand new “Secret Menu” featuring more of Ed’s secret recipes now exists (only for in-the-know guests who request it). And as a final touch, since Good Burger is for the people, all guests are treated with a buy one, get one free coupon on their first visit — good for any Good Meal of their choice.
In the charming words of Ed, of Secret Sauce fame, “Can I take your order?”.
Designed and Written by AJ Camara.
Jasmine Dragon
The Jasmine Dragon is a tea shop located in the fictional world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The Jasmine Dragon was established by Uncle Iroh in Ba Sing Se and ultimately represented the character’s development. The Jasmine Dragon can be seen in the last episode of the series where the whole gang meets up and has a happy ending. I chose to design this menu because I grew up watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was one of my favorite childhood TV shows, and I believe it is still relevant to current times due to its exploration of a lot of mature themes such as death, war, human nature, and more. I always find myself rewatching this show every couple of years.
I approached this design with a very nostalgic feeling. I wanted to represent The Jasmine Dragon in the best way possible, so I decided to go for a minimalistic design approach that echoes a lot of current tea shops. I wanted to reflect this minimal aesthetic in the overall design of the menu and the logo, which is why I chose to use a simple illustration along with a clean condensed sans serif font. I later realized that I wanted to incorporate a serif font as well and ended up choosing a condensed serif. Since Ba Sing Se is located in the Earth Kingdom, I decided to go for a very natural earthy color palette. I was able to find actual menu items from The Jasmine Dragon while researching so it was fun to design them with the aesthetic that I chose. Overall I believe I was able to represent The Jasmine Dragon through my design and satisfy my childhood dreams!
Now satisfy your tea cravings by having a sip of one of Uncle Iroh’s famous teas. Check out the menu options here.
Designed and Written by Anastasiya “Stacy” Krokha
