Trebeker's Fresh Poultry Buffet: a hoax

Imagine it. A restaurant founded on the most barbaric principle: You pay your fee, collect a fistful of darts, and try to nail a chicken for the cook to fry up for you.

You need not imagine such a place, for Trebekers (named, improbably, after Alex Trebek) exists. Their prices are shockingly steep: the "5 Darts Meal" for a family of four is $44.95!

Says the Trebekers website of their operation:

Built upon a near decade-old family tradition, Trebeker's Fresh Poultry Buffet™ brings the thrill of the hunt to your table! While your mouth waters at the tantalizing aromas the fill the restaurant, our 100% organic farm-fresh chickens dance around your table in… patented Chickin-Pickin' Pens™ — just dart the one you want, and our highly trained chefs will prepare it to your specifications…. When you dine at Trebeker's Fresh Poultry Buffet™, the choice is yours! Our birds are… almost entirely grain-fed, and are bred specifically for Trebeker's by local zoogenetic specialists.

When we said that Trebekers exists, we should have said that it "exists." For—glory of glories!—this is a hoax, friends. Nothing but a bold bit of satire.

We will admit that our very first impulse was to buy into it. After all, we've seen some pretty sick stuff over the years. This impulse was followed seconds later by disbelief. "Wait a minute!" we said (in recreated dialogue). "This is too ridiculous even for us in all our jaded misery to believe. You got us, Trebeker's!"

A quick investigation revealed that the listed phone number and address actually correspond to a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Pacific Palisades, California.

And while we feel that we dodged a bullet (or a dart?) on this one, we are chagrined by what it takes for us to feel such relief: only that an utterly monstrous story be false. What of the true horrors we've catalogued here time and again? Suicidefoodism is grinding us down.