[Julie Steiner]

I thought some here would enjoy this:
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2021/...ii-food-stand/

[F.F. Teague]

Thanks, Julie!

I visited Pompeii in April 1999 and I recall appreciating the frescoes :-)

Best wishes,
Fliss

[Allen Tice]

Very nice. Considering that classical Romans enjoyed dormice as a delicacy, this looks like a great place to enjoy a Gerbilmac (or Jirdmac - from Berber) - the finest in tiny dining. They kept and fed dormice in little pots with ventilator holes until needed.

OR, for those today who love gerbils, a Gerbilmac could be a special little treat for your personal pet, full of (pardon the puns) insex, cedes, and the what not that rodents fancy.

Anyway, this hot spot is just down the via from me.

[Jim Moonan]

.
I don't know if it is accurate to call the excavated food establishment at Pompeii a "fast food joint". Everything is relative, though, I guess. Most citizens of Pompeii in fact took their meals out rather that cook at home, so in that sense they are the equivalent to our fast food joints, but so much else about them is the antithesis of today's fast food joint. The quality, preparation, recipes, presentation, aesthetics, etc.
Will someone someday excavate a Burger King or a Wendy's or a McDonalds and marvel at the golden arches or the depiction of royalty or mythical face of a freckled girl? On second thought, don't answer that.

.

[Allen Tice]

Thanks, Jim. The thermopoliums might have offered a Jerboamac as a Saturnalia speciality. I’m fooling around and joking there.

What I do know is that as of my recent last Pompeii visit, when I called this or a very similar establishment a “thermopolium,” the guide said that she couldn’t use that archeologically technical term because of a dispute raging at that moment in the literature that she declined to explain. It was still a thermopolium to me.