Do you and your family have your own names for shops and cafes?

[Davespecifico]

It would be funny if you had done the same as ours. We have:
Kitty Shop = H & M
Yoghurt Cafe = Pret a Manger
Jan Loos = John Lewis (in honour of MIL's Smethwick accent).
Blue Cafe = Cafe Nero
Toy Tax = Build a Bear

With my friends it was always

Poo Look - New Look

And remember the dodgy shop International? We called it Intertrashional...thought we were hilarious!

My parents had a shop in the village known as "the funny shop". My dbro would always wrinkly his nose up and say "it smells funny" when he went in. None of the rest of us ever noticed a funny smell.

A colleague pronounced Pret a Manger exactly as it would be if it was English, so pretamangir (mang as in manky). He insisted that he genuinely believed it was pronounced that way.

John Lewis also Jean Louis (why?) or Jonny Loos.

My Mum misheard Holland and Barrett as Redford Barracks a while back and had a whole conversation based on her thinking a friend was running late as they were popping into the barracks for some evening primrose oil or similar. Obviously mum was quite surprised that you could just pop into the barracks for your evening primrose oil. Her friends were equally surprised that it was news to her that you could get evening primrose oil from Holland and Barrett and that anyone could just pop in. It took a while to get sorted out.

Our local corner shop is referred to as "the chocolate frog shop" because the dc used to get a freddo on a Friday afternoon if they had been good. (They are 14 and 12 and still call it that despite it being years since we bought freddos).

Sucks = Starbucks.

Then lots of shops are known as the names they had when I was growing up but that's fairly common here. E.g. John Lewis is called Heelas. The big Sainsburys is Savacentre. Etc etc.

Another Parmarni and Jean Louis here!

Also call River Island - Rip Off Island.

Dotty P's for Dorothy Perkins

Oh and another one for Coop (like chicken coop) and we also say Nandos as nan-doss after two pints of larger (the tv show)

Little Chef is Little Thief because we went once and came out feeling like we'd been robbed.

Jane couldnt believe the bargins - home bargins

Costa-fortune for Costa

The place with the books - Waterstones

The place with the puddles - a cafe near where we live

StarFucks here too for Starbucks

Carphone Whorehouse (because we are childish)

Tesco Local - The Robdogs

Ken Warne's is Ken Wok's (after a mishearing by FIL)

B+M is Bum Bargains

And Sports Direct is The Fat Cockney Bastard's

Just remembered two more, both from friends rather than me/us.

One friend insists on referring to Waitrose as Wait Roses - I know not why.

The other one goes back a number of years; another friend used to refer to our local corner shop as the 'ding-dong shop'. It turned out that he used to buy a miniature bottle of Bells Whiskey when he went to 'buy the Evening Standard'. Apparently he had time to neck the miniature Bells between 'the ding-dong shop' and getting home.

Penny and Spectrum. - Doonez here too.
Always THE Asda from many years living in Liverpool.

We call B&M Bargain Madness. I think it might have been actually called that when it started, or else I might have just made that up.

Home Bargains - I fall it homey b's

B&M is the BUM shop after my daughter misread the sign

Mcdonalds is the happymeal centre
Think thats about all we have

Asdal... any Bristol branch of Asda.

Our local cafe has been known as The Toast Shop since DCs were little and DH used to take them for a treat breakfast sometimes. It recently changed hands and has been done up so will henceforth be know as The New Toast Shop.

IKEA - the ice cream shop
Home bargains - the egg shop ( for the chocolate eggs with toys).

We also do Wait roses! No idea why

Sainsbos for Sainsbury’s

Bothersons for Morrison’s (as in why bother...our local one is so shit!)

“Green cafe” for what is now a Euphorium bakery...hasn’t been green in about 8y...

Woolworths for a particular Lidl...because it used to be a woolies!

Coop for co-op

Macdoodles for mcdonalds

Le boot-es for Boots

Teeshcoo for Tesco

God forbid I call anything by its proper name!

I think the only one we do is Johnny Lou Lou's which comes from a style column in the sunday papers back in the late 80's/early 90's - Dear Annie was it called?

We do refer to various farm shops by the name of the owner or main produce rather than the actual name, giving you a trip to Barrys bacon, or 'the asparagus place'

Fake Spar is a corner shop painted in red and has a suspiciously similar sign to Spar.

WithSmiths is WHSmiths cos my mind inserted a T (WTHSmiths) when I was young.

CornerChips for the chippy in the village where I grew up, as it was unsurprisingly on the crossroads corner.

The Co-op will always be Gateways to us.

Target is The Dot Store

That’s about it really. Oh and DH calls Walmart, Asda and Home Depot, B&Q but that’s just annoying