What’s your favorite color? Pet?  Television show? Whatever? I don’t know, but when you answer one of these questions, I assume you’ve had some experience with a few items in that category and selected the one you like best. Notice the word experience.  Now take a look at this sign:

Coming soon?

Can anyone explain to me how this sign, stuck on the windows of a restaurant still under construction, can refer to “your favorite neighborhood place”? I always assumed something had to exist before it could become a favorite, but apparently not. And no, the sign does not refer to a second branch of another place in the same neighborhood. If Google’s algorithm served me well, there is a Cousins NYC restaurant in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, which may, for all I know, be the favorite neighborhood place of everyone in that neighborhood. But Brooklyn is a long way from the window displaying this sign.

Next up is an awning attached to a doughnut shop:

What’s a “bake place”?

I’m not sure what the dot is supposed to represent – a hyphen, a dash, a period, an ampersand, or something else. I’m assuming that the dot’s purpose is to separate a beverage (coffee) from,  well, from what? What is a bake place? The term brings to mind a stove or perhaps a tanning salon, but those meanings don’t fit here. (Also, doughnuts are fried, not baked.) Maybe bake place is a substitute for bakery?  If so, why not put bakery on the sign?   With an awning like this, I doubt the store will become any grammarian’s favorite neighborhood place.