Photograph by George Sakkestad
Brothers Dean (left) and Darin Devincenzi are preparing to open a new sports bar in town.
By Clarence Cromwell
Suspecting a smutty pun in the name of a new restaurant, Mayor Randy Attaway met with owners of yet-unopened Double D's Sports Grille last week and asked them to consider renaming the place.
He was responding to complaints from town residents. After Darin and Dean Devincenzi hung a temporary banner outside their restaurant, at least 10 people complained to town officials that the name is too sexually suggestive or is degrading to women.
"That's not the image that Los Gatos wants to portray," Attaway said.
Before the meeting, the Devincenzis said that no pun was intended, but also that they had no plans to change the name.
The day afterward, Attaway told the Los Gatos Weekly-Times: "After meeting with Dean and Darin, I'm convinced that it's their intention to run a fine-quality establishment."
The controversy might have surprised the town, since the Devincenzis told planning officials the name of the restaurant would be the Doubles Sports Grill when they asked for approval to renovate the building. Dean Devincenzi told the Weekly-Times the brothers decided on the less suggestive name after a friend commented at a wedding party that their original name choice-- Double D's--sounded like a brassiere size.
But after the Planning Commission approved the project, the name changed back to Double D's Sports Grille.
"The more we talked about it, 'Doubles' just didn't ring a bell with us," he said.
The Devincenzis haven't built a permanent sign on the building yet, but they've printed about 1,000 business cards with the Double D's name. And they say they had their hearts set on the phrase so long they don't want to change it.
A number of residents worried that that the establishment would become similar to Hooters, a chain known for its barmaids in tight-fitting tops.
Dean Devincenzi said that he and his brother plan to hire both male and female employees and that all of them will wear the same uniform: a baseball jersey with khaki slacks.
Some insist that the name is offensive on its own and will give visitors a bad impression of the town, regardless of the business carried on inside.
"It's like a neon sign saying 'pick up cheap women here,'" Los Gatan Claire Burke said. "That building is the first thing you see when you come into town. It's a real landmark. I don't mind the sports bar, I don't mind another bar in Los Gatos. But 'Double D's' would draw a certain view of the town."
Burke was among those who consider the name a slight against females.
"That sign tells me automatically this bar is going to degrade women," Burke said.
Deborah Deverse-Gaches, a marketing employee for a computer networking firm, concurred.
"Why name your business something that will be offensive to potential customers?" Deverse-Gaches asked. "I think that's what they did."
The Devincenzis said they're just putting an old nickname on the restaurant. Dean and Darin, 37 and 38 years old respectively, said they called themselves "Double D" a long time before anyone considered the phrase's double entendre.
"It's been that way since we were young," Dean Devincenzi said. "It wouldn't be appropriate to change, because that's our name."
Darin adds, "We're family men. The other connotation was not ever a consideration. Not even remotely."
It looks like the Devincenzis won't have to change the name if they don't want to--and they told the mayor that they do not intend to make a change.
Despite residents' objections, the town has no control over names of businesses, explained Town Manager David Knapp, who added that the question of the restaurant's name is a First Amendment issue.
"I don't think you want your local government telling you what you can name your store," Knapp said.
Mayor Attaway said last week he would only make a polite suggestion for the name change.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, June 19, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved