Fake website promotes hip-hop restaurant
Different type of marketing draws attention
carl dwyer/SXC
Bad news, hungry hip-hop fans. As many of you speculated, Bon Rappetite, the world's first rap themed eatery, does not actually exist. The gloriously pun-filled website Bon-Rappetite.com is currently the closest you will get to such dishes as the Waka Flocka Flambe. That's right, if you can stop thinking about the Talib Quali-i you'll have to make it for yourself.
But take heart, because the people behind the site feel your pain. "I wish it were real" says Everett Steele a web designer and one of the co-creators of Bon-Rappetite.com.
The hip-hop fan and Atlien (that's Atlantan to the uninitiated) adds, "I have no desire to be a restaurateur but Ludacris, if you are listening, Usher, Drake come down to Atlanta, give me whatever is in that case or what you keep in that room and I will build a restaurant around it."
Steele says that the site started as a joke, a collection of puns written on a bar napkin. "Our company really enjoys fun with technology and the internet," he explains - almost as much as they like puns involving rappers.
So Baby Robot Industries, co-founded by Everett and his wife Bunny Mcintosh, decided to take the puns from the napkin to the net. "We emailed it to like ten people" he says.
A year later a couple of local Atlanta outlets took notice. Now Steele finds himself fielding questions from national media including a mention in the food magazine Bon Appetit. The site has received tens of thousands of hits and spent the better part of one recent morning down due to high traffic volume.
Steele chuckles at the sudden attention but he gets the appeal, everyone loves puns, he says. Best of all, he loves that people now share their own menu items like: Gucci Mane Lobster and A Tribe Called Quesadilla.
All jokes aside, Steele does seem a little bothered by assumptions that the site is little more than a marketing ploy. The company, Baby Robot Industries has not gotten any gigs as a result he says. But, he adds, if you find yourself unable to quell a craving for some real Bon Rappetite in your life they will have t-shirts for sale soon replete with a logo that he says "looks almost like a real restaurant."
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