By JT Santana | jtwb768

Before anyone opens Google Maps, requests a reservation, complains about the parking, or asks whether the crab rangoon contains real crab, y I need to make one fact perfectly clear: Sissy That Wok! is fictional. It is not an operating restaurant, registered business, secret supper club, food truck, or suspiciously glamorous kitchen hiding somewhere in the Quad Cities. No one is currently standing over a flaming wok preparing General Tso Fabulous, and the Chinese pug mascot is not accepting applications for a sous-chef.

Sissy That Wok! is another product of the strange, overcrowded, meandering brain inside my skull. That brain rarely travels in a straight line, but it does know how to take a ridiculous pun and build an entire enterprise around it. One minute I had the name “Sissy That Wok!” bouncing around in my head; the next minute there was a logo, a glamorous pug, a restaurant menu, a spice scale, house rules, and enough fictional food to make me angry that none of it could be delivered.

That is how these things happen around here. I get one tiny creative impulse, give it snacks, and suddenly it has incorporated.

How a Ridiculous Pun Became a Restaurant

The name grew from the familiar drag expression “Sissy That Walk,” transformed through the questionable magic of wordplay into “Sissy That Wok!” Once that pun arrived, it refused to leave. It was loud, campy, unapologetically queer, and far too delighted with itself to remain a passing joke.

A name like that could not belong to a quiet little restaurant with beige walls and a generic menu. It demanded color, personality, theatrical presentation, and food names that sounded like they had already survived three elimination challenges. The fictional menu began filling itself with creations such as Everybody Say Egg Roll, Serving Face & Crab Rangoon, General Tso Fabulous, Kung Pao! You Better Work, Fried Rice of Your Life, Tofu, She Better Do!, and Death Drop Donuts.

The restaurant needed a signature entrée, naturally, so the menu gained a dish called Sissy That Wok! It contains chicken, beef, shrimp, vegetables, noodles, and a sweet-spicy house sauce. The menu describes it as “the dish that pays the rent,” which is ambitious language for a meal currently paying absolutely nothing.

Then came the spice scale. Customers can select Shy Sissy, Feeling Herself, Read Me, Call the Fire Department, or Choices Were Made. That final level exists for people who see a warning label and interpret it as a personal challenge.

The menu soon developed its own attitude. It became less like a list of food and more like a cast of characters who had gathered backstage, borrowed one another’s lashes, and started arguing over top billing. Every section needed its own little moment, and every dish needed a name capable of making someone groan before ordering it anyway.

Enter the Pug

Every respectable fictional restaurant needs a mascot, especially when the restaurant itself has no building, staff, kitchen, customers, or legal existence. Sissy That Wok! found its host in a cheerful Chinese pug wearing a red, jade, plum, and gold satin jacket. He carries a wok spatula, smiles like he knows everybody’s business, and appears fully prepared to welcome diners, inspect the kitchen, and judge anyone who undertips the server.

The pug became the center of the visual identity. He appears on the printable menu as the unofficial host, offering the very sensible instruction: “Sit. Stay. Eat. Tip your server.” He is friendly, theatrical, slightly mischievous, and more qualified to operate a restaurant than several humans I have encountered.

He does not have a name yet. That may be temporary, or it may be part of his mystique. He could be waiting for a proper contract, creative control, and a guaranteed percentage of all Pug’s Pride Fried Rice sales.

His presence gave the restaurant a personality beyond the original pun. Sissy That Wok! stopped feeling like a one-line joke and began resembling a fictional place that people might genuinely want to visit. It became a restaurant where the host knows you, the menu makes you laugh, the food sounds comforting, and nobody needs to lower their voice when talking about who they are or whom they love.

Proudly LGBTQ+ Owned—Inside This Completely Fictional Universe

In the imaginary universe where Sissy That Wok! operates, it is proudly LGBTQ+ owned. That detail is not decorative, nor is it a rainbow sticker placed on the window during Pride Month and removed before the first day of July. Queer ownership shapes the restaurant’s identity, sense of humor, house rules, hospitality, and commitment to making every guest feel welcome.

LGBTQ+ ownership carries meaning in communities where queer people have often had to create their own gathering places. Bars, bookstores, cafés, restaurants, performance venues, community centers, and other queer-owned establishments have served functions far beyond commerce. They have offered places to meet friends, find information, discover community, organize politically, celebrate relationships, and exist without constant self-editing.

Many of those spaces have disappeared. Rising commercial rents, economic pressure, cultural changes, online social life, and the closure of long-standing LGBTQ+ venues have left numerous communities with fewer physical places where queer people can gather openly. A queer-owned restaurant cannot replace every lost bar, center, or institution, but it can become part of the network of places where people feel recognized.

Ownership affects who makes decisions. It influences hiring, workplace policies, partnerships, charitable support, marketing, and the treatment of customers whose families or relationships do not fit traditional expectations. A queer-owned restaurant can employ LGBTQ+ people who have faced discrimination elsewhere, support local queer organizations, host community gatherings, and refuse to treat inclusion as a temporary promotional theme.

That does not mean every LGBTQ+ business owner is automatically ethical, generous, or good at running a business. Queer ownership is not a moral certification, and identity alone does not excuse poor labor practices or bad food. The significance lies in representation, opportunity, and the ability of people from marginalized communities to shape the institutions serving them.

Sissy That Wok! represents a playful version of that possibility. Its fictional house rules say, “Come as you are,” “Share the dumplings,” “Never yuck somebody’s yum,” and “Tip the people serving the fantasy.” Underneath the jokes is a serious standard: hospitality should not require anyone to hide.

More Than a Rainbow Logo

There is an enormous difference between an LGBTQ+ owned business and a company that rents queer imagery for a seasonal advertising campaign. One comes from community experience; the other may come from a marketing calendar. A rainbow product can be pleasant, but it cannot substitute for year-round employment protections, respectful service, meaningful community investment, or leadership that includes LGBTQ+ people.

In my fictional restaurant, queer identity is present without turning every dish into a political lecture. The jokes are campy, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the menu treats queer language as ordinary rather than controversial. No one receives a pamphlet with the appetizers, though the pug may offer unsolicited opinions.

That kind of casual visibility has value. LGBTQ+ people deserve places where their existence is neither hidden nor treated as the sole topic in the room. A queer-owned restaurant can be openly queer and still spend most of its time doing what restaurants are supposed to do: feeding people, paying workers, building relationships, and occasionally apologizing when someone receives the wrong noodles.

Sissy That Wok! takes that idea and gives it theatrical lighting. Its queer identity is proud, funny, hospitable, and completely integrated into the concept. The restaurant is not asking permission to exist. It is too busy serving Beef & Broccoli, But Make It Fashion.

A Fictional Concept, Not a Claim About Chinese Identity

Sissy That Wok! plays with the familiar structure of an American Chinese restaurant menu, but it is not intended to speak for Chinese people, Chinese cuisine, or the immense range of culinary traditions found across China and the global Chinese diaspora. I am creating a fictional restaurant concept, not claiming cultural expertise or presenting this menu as an authentic regional dining experience.

The humor rests mainly in drag language, queer wordplay, restaurant culture, and my inability to leave a pun alone. The food names draw from dishes widely found on American Chinese restaurant menus, many of which reflect their own distinct history of migration, adaptation, entrepreneurship, and American dining habits. That history deserves respect rather than caricature.

The pug mascot follows the same principle. He is a playful host wearing an ornate restaurant jacket, not an excuse to reduce any culture to a visual stereotype. His primary duties are holding a spatula, greeting guests, and looking suspiciously pleased with himself.

Any future version of this fictional idea should keep that distinction intact. Camp can be bold without becoming careless. Humor works best when the joke has imagination, affection, and some awareness of where it is placing its feet.

Why Build Something That Does Not Exist?

Creative ideas do not need a business plan to justify their existence. Sometimes it is healthy to make something for the pleasure of making it, particularly when so much daily life is weighed down by illness, politics, bills, deadlines, grief, anger, and the endless administrative chores attached to simply being alive. A ridiculous restaurant concept can give the mind somewhere lighter to go.

Sissy That Wok! gave me a chance to build a miniature fictional universe. It began with four words and grew into branding, a mascot, a complete menu, visual design, pricing, slogans, house rules, desserts, drinks, children’s meals, and a five-level warning system for people who believe pain is a seasoning. None of that solves a national crisis, but it made me laugh.

Laughter is not an intellectual failure or an escape from serious work. Humor helps people process difficult realities, regain perspective, and reconnect with the playful parts of themselves that responsibility often buries. I spend a great deal of time writing about stigma, discrimination, public policy, illness, death, justice, sexuality, religion, and the systems that fail people. My brain occasionally deserves to dress a pug in satin and place him in charge of a restaurant.

Creative meandering is part of how I work. One idea leads to another, then another, until the original thought has acquired a staff directory and dessert menu. Some ideas become articles. Some become research projects. Some become campaigns, logos, fictional brands, or strange little universes that exist long enough to make a difficult day feel less heavy.

Sissy That Wok! belongs to that last category—for now.

Please Do Not Attempt to Order

Once again, Sissy That Wok! is a work of fiction. The address does not exist, the phone number does not exist, and there is no online ordering portal. The pug is illustrated, the kitchen is imaginary, and the food can neither be picked up nor delivered.

The prices are fictional too, though they may be the most believable part of the concept. No real employees were asked to memorize the spice scale, and no actual fire department has been contacted regarding the “Call the Fire Department” option. The restaurant has passed every fictional health inspection conducted by the fictional authorities inside my head.

Yet the values behind the joke are real. Queer-owned spaces deserve support, LGBTQ+ people deserve visible roles as creators and owners, workers deserve respect, customers deserve dignity, and everybody deserves a place where they can eat without being treated like their identity is a disruption.

Sissy That Wok! may never serve a single plate, but it has already served its purpose. It gave my strange brain room to play, turned a pun into a complete creative concept, and created a restaurant many of us would probably visit if it existed.

Until that day arrives, we have the menu, the mascot, and the dream. We just do not have the General Tso Fabulous, which feels deeply unfair.