The Olympia Cafe was a fictional diner or greasy spoon featured in a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch. The staff, led by the late John Belushi as Pete Dionasopolis, were Greeks. As various guest stars discovered, only three items on the long menu could actually be ordered successfully: the cheeseburger (memorably pronounced "Cheezborger" by Belushi), chips (pronounced "Cheep"), and Pepsi. Attempts to order Coke were invariably met with the retort, "No Coke! Pepsi!" Likewise, those who ordered french fries got the response, "No fries! Chips!"
According to Don Novello, who penned the first Olympia Cafe sketch, the diner was based on the Billy Goat Tavern on Lower North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, which is still operating (and part of a small chain).
Olympia is a Greek town after which many restaurants were named. John Belushi's father owned a cafe called the "Olympia" in the 1960s. During the 1970s, there was a real-life Olympia Cafe on the Upper West Side of Manhattan which was very similar to the diner in the sketch.
Read more about Olympia Cafe: Other Cultural References
Famous quotes containing the word cafe:
“The train was crammed, the heat stifling. We feel out of sorts, but do not quite know if we are hungry or drowsy. But when we have fed and slept, life will regain its looks, and the American instruments will make music in the merry cafe described by our friend Lange. And then, sometime later, we die.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)