'Restaurant' is French for 'a restorative broth' — the name jumped from the healing soup to the shop.
A place where people pay to sit and eat meals prepared and served on the premises.
From French 'restaurant,' originally meaning 'a restorative food or drink' — specifically a rich, concentrated broth believed to restore health. The noun derives from the present participle of 'restaurer' (to restore), from Latin 'restaurāre' (to repair, rebuild), from 're-' (again) + a lost verb related to 'staurāre' (to set up). The first establishment to call itself a 'restaurant' in the modern sense was opened in Paris around 1765 by a bouillon-seller named Boulanger, who inscribed above his door: 'Venite ad me, omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurabo vos' — 'Come to me, all who labour with your
A 'restaurant' is literally a place that 'restores' you. The word originally meant a rich meat broth prescribed to invalids. When Parisian entrepreneurs began serving these restorative broths to the public in the 1760s, the name for the broth transferred to the establishment itself — making every restaurant, etymologically, a hospital canteen.