I don't have an opinion about Thom Pham's Wondrous Azian Kitchen -- other than, can we please shorthand that word-salad name? -- because it hasn't opened yet (more on that in a second). But here's what I do know: the restaurant, bravely located in the Hennepin-and-Sixth graveyard that has sucked the life out of at least four prior food-and-drink enterprises in the past decade, greets the street with a rockin' good sign.

It's the work of Ben Janssens of SignMinds in northeast Minneapolis, and it heartily embraces the laudible tradition of jazzy restaurant marquees, a la the nearby Murray's. Restaurateurs everywhere, take note. Yours is a fun industry. Shouldn't your signage reflect that?

A portion of the fabulous Murray's sign. Star Tribune file photo.

It's a message that Pham clearly understands. "The sign is based on an original sign from the Kowloon Cafe in St. Louis Park, which Thom bought and turned into his Thanh Do," said spokesperson Chris Kallal. "Thom wanted to refurbish the sign, but it didn't work out, so Ben replicated it, making it larger and adding neon."

It's a hoot: gaudy, flashy and just a little bit honky-tonk, exactly what Hennepin Avenue needs. Yeah, the crinkled-and-crimped Chinese-style lettering is more than a little cliched, but, let's face it: the streets and sidewalks of downtown Minneapolis need all the pizzazz they can get. ("Azian" is not a misspelling; the restaurant is the downtown sibling to Azia, Pham's Eat Street bar and restaurant, which closed last week). The sign's very deliberate Charlie Chan-meets-chicken-chow-mein styling also serves as an affectionate nod to one of Pham's inspirations, the former Nankin.

The Nankin, which sputtered to a close 11 years ago, had a doozy of sign heralding its 7th and Hennepin location; it was a holdover from its previous 7th St. home, which was razed in the late 1970s to make way for the City Center complex.

That sign (shown here in a 1984 Star Tribune file photos) was a pet topic of retired Strib columnist Barbara Flanagan. Here's what she wrote on March 1, 1999: "So now the Nankin has closed - what do we do about the historic, 70-year-old lighted restaurant sign? I helped save it once, by ranting about it in my column, and I wonder if we can save it again.

"The advertising landmark, which contains more than 700 feet of neon, was put into storage in 1981 when the restaurant moved into City Center. (At one point developers banned it from the City Center facade, a decision that was later reversed.) In November 1984, after restoration, the 30-foot-tall sign was installed outside the restaurant's final location at 7th St. and Hennepin Av."

That particularly bleak corner of City Center is now occupied by Fogo de Chao, and that landmark Nankin sign disappeared off the building years ago. Does anyone know what happened to it? Please tell me that it's not lying in the bottom of a landfill somewhere in Anoka County. Perhaps it could find new life tacked on to the facade of the ultra-tacky Block E complex.

Meanwhile, Kallal noted that TPWAK (no, that doesn't quite work, either; how about just plain-old Wondrous?) is tentatively scheduled for a soft dinner opening on Thursday evening. "That's the goal, but you know how these things go," he said. If Pham & Co. make that target, the restaurant and bar will settle into its 11 a.m.-to-2 a.m. schedule the following day.