El Roi Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
You know you’ve been involved in project management for too long when the only thing that comes to mind when told about a restaurant named “El Roi” is “why would a restaurant be named for a Return on Investment (ROI).” For those of us who have worked in Information Technology, ROI is a financial ratio used to calculate the benefit an investor will receive in relation to their investment cost. Restaurants often have a poor return of investment–not just in financial capital, but in human capital. Restaurants require a significant investment in time by owners as well as kitchen and “front of the house” staffs and the financial return isn’t exactly lucrative. My Kim theorized that Roi is probably a preferred derivation of Roy. “By poor spellers,” I chortled. It turns out my brainy bride was correct…well, almost. According to Namedat, a website which takes social security administration data and converts it to facts and stats about names of people in the United States, there are actually 8,706 humans in the country with the first name Roi. Naturally one of the very first questions we asked when we finally made it to El Roi is just what does the name…