A few weeks back, a reader wrote to us asking when I might review “restaurants that may appeal to men.” At the time, I thought that the distinction was bogus — what's the difference? We all eat, right?

Well, it turns out that gender-specific restaurants are becoming kind of a thing. In recent weeks, a couple of celebrity restaurateurs have announced that they're planning to open lady-themed restaurants.

These restaurants are different than “breastaurants,” in that the lady-theme isn't about lady-parts but rather things that ladies like. Such as?

Um, catwalks, 3D projection mapping, cryogenic fog and rain curtains. A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that Eva Longoria will be opening a “steakhouse for women” in Vegas called SHe, which will incorporate all of these elements. It'll also be 1920s-themed, because chicks totally dig that cryogenic fog flapper shit.

And now some dude who is apparently famous for being on some terrible show — Chris Bukowski, Bachelorette — is opening a “lady-style” sports bar in D.C. What's so lady-ish about it? Small plates, apparently. And also, women need “a place to go where they can and have affordable food and have a very casual setting.” Men don't need that. Because they're breadwinners and like to spend money and be fancy. No? I don't know.

Of course, SHe won't be the only lady-themed steakhouse in Vegas — STK did that crap years ago, offering, from the get go, a “female friendly mindset,” whatever that means. I haven't been to the STK in Vegas or Los Angeles, but I did go to the one in Atlanta and, from what I could tell, the most feminine thing about it was the spiky swoopy sculpture-like thing above the bar that kind of resembled a very elegant bikini wax.

It's all just marketing, but it seems straight dumb to set out to disenfranchise half of your potential clientele. Here's hoping that the gender-themed restaurant trend is short-lived or, at least if we have to live with it, someone does a transgender-themed restaurant soon for the sake of equality.

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