'Trading Places'-Themed Diner Is a Thing That Will Soon Exist

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Eddie Murphy and ‘friends’ chow down in style in ‘Trading Places’–soon, diners in Bethesda, Md., will be able to seek that flavor at ‘Winthorpe and Valentine’

Like most people who have seen the 1983 Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd comedy Trading Places, you’ve probably spent the past three decades wondering when the movie would finally inspire a restaurant. Well, the wait is finally over.

According to the Washington City Paper, an urban diner called Winthorpe and Valentine’s Community will open this summer in Bethesda, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C. For those who don’t know Trading Places by heart, that name is inspired by Louis Winthorpe III, the wealthy snob played in the movie by Aykroyd, and Billy Ray Valentine, the homeless guy played by Murphy, whose lives are swapped as part of an elaborate socially experimental bet waged between two old, white, racist rich dudes (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche).

Related: Jon Favreau Has a Tasty Idea: A ‘Chef’-Themed Restaurant

Mark Bucher, the man behind the restaurant, tells the City Paper that the influence of Trading Places will be seen most clearly on the menu, where items will reference some of the jokes and plot points from the movie. Frozen orange juice from concentrate will be sold “at market price” – a nod to the orange juice-related stock price switcheroo that Aykroyd and Murphy pull off near the movie’s end – and smoked salmon will be listed as “Santa suit optional,” referring to the moment when a drunken, disheveled Aykroyd starts gnawing on a fish stashed inside his not-so-jolly ol’ Saint Nick outfit (watch below).

Personally, I’m hoping they take things even further. Surely pork bellies – offered at a price that’s going down – should be on the menu. The City Paper story already promises that chicken pot pie, with an actual chicken leg sticking out of it, will be served. If Bucher doesn’t name that dish, “I Have Legs!” as an homage to this scene, he’s missing out on a massive opportunity.

But if he really wants to do a Trading Places restaurant right, he should regularly find people who are down on their luck and enable them to switch meal budgets with one of the many well-off Bethesda residents who will frequent this place. Hey, if Trading Places taught us anything, it’s that the divide between rich and poor can easily be bridged in a righteous common cause.

Watch a restaurant scene from ‘Trading Places’: