"Puff, The Magic Dragon" Restaurant Chain is in the Works

If the company that created the Rainforest Cafe has its way, you could soon be eating in a "Puff, The Magic Dragon"-themed restaurant. Schussler Creative, Inc (SCI) announced last week that, after two years of talks with Peter, Paul, and Mary's Peter Yarrow and songwriter Lenny Lipton, they've acquired the world-wide rights to create a chain of restaurants inspired by the '60s psychedelic hit.

"It has been a personal dream of mine to bring this story to life as an attraction, a restaurant/retail store and to develop merchandise to accompany the concept," SCI founder Steven Schussler said in a statement.

Very little is known about what the restaurants will look like (other than that each will have a gift store with merchandise), and nothing yet has been released about what the menu will feature. But the restaurants' future aesthetic already has the full support of the song's creators. "Peter Yarrow and I, as the authors of the song and the book, 'Puff, the Magic Dragon,' have been approached countless times throughout the years to license the rights to 'Puff,'" Lipton said in a statement. "We have great respect for the fact that the song and the story have become a classic and, for this reason, we are dedicated to maintaining the quality of all efforts relating to 'Puff.' Steven Schussler is someone who we are sure will uphold and honor the tradition of ‘Puff’."

Yarrow said he was encouraged by Schussler's success with "children and families," so it looks like the songwriters are sticking by their longstanding insistence that the song has nothing to do with smoking.