Use of apostrophes

[Pearse1]

Hi - We have two restaurants called Holohans Pantry and Holohans at the Barge - should they have an apostrophe?

[Twoddle]

Oct 8, 2016 8:56:13 GMT Pearse1 said:

Hi - We have two restaurants called Holohans Pantry and Holohans at the Barge - should they have an apostrophe?

Welcome, Pearse1.

We'd need a bit more information to be able to give a definitive answer. Is the name "Holohan" or "Holohans"? And is there one Holohan/Holohans or more than one? In the case of the Barge, are you saying that Holohan/Holohans is/are at the Barge, or that the restaurant of Holohan/Holohans is at the Barge? Depending upon the details, they could be:

Holohan's Pantry;

Holohans' Pantry;

Holohans's Pantry;

Holohan's at the Barge;

Holohans' at the Barge;

Holohans at the Barge;

Holohanses at the Barge.

There's an easier answer, however, which is that in the case of a business you can call it whatever you like, without worrying about grammar or punctuation. Think of iPhone, for example: a proper noun should always start with a capital letter, and it's ridiculous to have a capital somewhere in the middle of a word, so all the "rules" say that it should be Iphone, but it isn't. The chain of restaurants known as McDonald's was started by two McDonald brothers, so it should have its apostrophe right at the end - McDonalds' - but that's never bothered the company.