Meals off wheels

You’ll need a strong stomach to enter South Dakota’s

Roadkill Cafe. By Tim Fennell

Like a great many forward-thinking restaurants, the Original World Famous Roadkill
Cafe has an answerphone service that provides details of the evening's specials: “Hello, 5
you probably caught us scraping squirrels off the sidewalk right now, but if you leave
a message we'll call you right back.” If that message fails to dissuade you, then the bill
of fare should. One cannot help but wonder what Loyd Grossman would make of a
Masterchef menu comprising Flat Cat ('Tastes Real Neat When it's Fresh From the
Street'), Narrow Sparrow, Rigor Mortis Tortoise, Smear of Deer and German Shepherd's 10
Pie.
The restaurant, in Sturgis, South Dakota, gets its name from the American term for
vehicle-flattened wildlife. In this country, such a fate is usually associated with tardy
hedgehogs; their South Dakotan relatives are obviously quicker, for they are
conspicuously absent from the menu. Despite this omission, the World Famous Roadkill 15
Cafe (motto: 'From Your Grill to Ours') is regularly packed.
“We conceived the idea of the Roadkill Cafe as a mixture of humour and
entertainment,” says the owner, Dennis 'Sugarbear' Lovlold, who used to run tattoo
parlours. “You have to make a joke out of a lot of tragedy in life or it will get you down.”
Curiosity lured 300 people through the door on opening day. Animal rights 20
campaigners were curious, too, wanting to know which species the cafe features on its
logo (a flattened animal covered by tyre tracks). Sugarbear remembers the exchange.
“They said: ‘Why are you using a dead squirrel in your logo? It's such a nice animal.’
I told them it's not a squirrel, it's an URK - an Unidentified Road Kill.”
One of the cafe’s regular customers is the local game warden, whose job it is to 25
scrape real casualties off the highway. “He comes here for breakfast,” notes Sugarbear
with approval, “and leaves his truck, full of all kinds of dead stuff, outside to give the
place a bit of authenticity.” Authenticity? Is the menu, then, not what it seems? Sugarbear
remembers City Hall asking the same question. “They sent a health inspector round.
He said: ‘Do you really serve dogs and cats in here?’ I said, ‘For five dollars, I'll serve 30
anybody.’”

Can you identify examples of the following rhetorical techniques?

Alliteration - Line(s)………………………………………………….

Rhyming - Line(s)………………………………………………….

Double meanings - Line(s)………………………………………………….

© David Ripley, InThinking

http://www.thinkib.net/englishb
A typical ‘article’ structure
This is a short feature article, written by a professional journalist. It aims to interest the reader by
informing (clearly) and entertaining (wittily) – and to do all this within the restricted space allowed
by the editor of the paper (around 370 words).
What structural elements can we see, that could be transferred for use in other articles?
Look for the following elements, and write in the line numbers identifying the sections of the text.

Vivid introduction, to catch the reader’s attention

(lines)……………………………..
… made up of…
Specific anecdotal detail + More general background detail
(lines)…………………………….. (lines)……………………………..

Overall explanation of central subject matter

(lines)……………………………..

Direct quotation, explaining central subject matter

(lines)……………………………..

‘the other side of the coin’: possible counter-arguments

(lines)……………………………..

Fuller specific detail

(lines)……………………………..

Lively conclusion
(lines)……………………………

© David Ripley, InThinking

http://www.thinkib.net/englishb