Shortly after September 11, 2001, a (very alarmed) customer pointed out that with his gray beard and prominent eyebrows, the local bar proprietor Ceará Francisco Helder Braga Fernandes bore a disturbing resemblance to Osama bin Laden. After a lighthearted encounter with the local police, however, Fernandes decided to just go with it, and rather than splurge on grooming, he started by changing the name of his bar to Bar do Bin Laden. There are now apparently “nearly a dozen Brazilian establishments” in the area that use the dead Al Qaeda leader’s name or likeness to sell things like beer and grilled meats, so it’s a fair guess that the reaction to these kinds of things in São Paulo is a little different than the ways northern Thailand’s Hitler chicken restaurant and that Nazi smoothie hangout in Jakarta were received. Even Brad Pitt, or someone who looks just like him, has stopped by for a nightcap. [Guardian, Related]
