Güllüoglu: Free Food If You Can Pronounce It

Güllüoglu, a Turkish baklava and cafe chain, has opened a store in Tallinn, and customers are already having fun trying to pronounce it. "I called Ekspress Hotline to ask for the shop's number," said a British resident of Tallinn, "and when I said güllüoglu, the operator hung up on me." In Estonian, the name means "sweaty gonads."
"This is a classic example of misnaming a product," says advertising expert Linnart Linnunina, "much like the Americans calling a car Nova, which meant 'doesn't go' in Spanish." Other Estonians were also skeptical of the restaurant's chances for success. Sirje Potisepp, head of the Estonian Association of Food Producers, welcomed the restaurant but expressed skepticism. "The taste of Turkish sweets is very strange for Estonians," she said in the business daily, Äripäev. Estonians are known to favor less exotic foods such as dried fish, plain white bread, and milk soup.