Donning padded pants one pin at a time; Shaggy Belafontone!, Currency of the Century; Service with a Simile: “As you like it” or “Like you like it!” Tank & Kat at the “Cordial Teahouse” A “Fall Night” foreshadows looming winter; “Appliance? Apple Pliers?”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Tank & Kat at the “Cordial Teahouse”

Most hungry patrons of the “Cordial Teahouse” truck stop cordially greet their waitress, Kat, with a 5-word anagram of that 15-letter name.

A creative trucker named Tank, however, slyly substitutes a 6-letter synonym in place of the third word in that five-word greeting. 

That six-letter synonym, along with the last word in the greeting, can be rearranged to spell an 11-letter appetizer that Kat then serves Tank the Trucker. 

What are the 5-word  greeting, 6-letter synonym and appetizer?

Appetizer Menu

Posed-By-A-Pal-Of-Puzzleria! Appetizer:

Donning padded pants one pin at a time; Currency of the Century; “Shaggy Belafontone!”

Note: These posers are the product of the creative gray matter of a longtime contributor to, and “friend of, Puzzleria!”  

Currency of the Century!

1. 💸Take an early 21st Century year, four digits, which is an important milestone in the development of a significant form of currency. Change a number in that year to a letter, and add a space in the year, so that the result appears to name two other forms of currency. 

What is the year? What are the two other forms of currency? How was that solution reached? 

Donning padded pants, one pin at a time! 

2. 🩳Name a football action, defensive in nature, carried out while a team is on offense, but nominally executed by neither the offense nor the defense. Replace a vowel in the name of that action by two other different vowels to name something a team would like to have, particularly in a close game. 

What is the action, and what would a team like to have? 

“Shaggy Belafontone!”

3. 🐶Take the first two words of a sporting event that took place mostly in the first 48 hours of January 2026. 

Remove five consecutive internal letters and a
punctuation mark. 

What remains, when read aloud, sounds like a signature lyric from a still popular traditional folk song recorded for release 70 years ago. 

What is the sporting event and the lyric? 

MENU

Confounding Compound Hors d’Oeuvre:

A “Fall Night” foreshadows looming winter

Name a compound word associated with a certain time of day. 

Switch the two syllables and add a space to get two words associated with a sport. What are these three words?

“Oh Barbarian!” Slice:

Appliance? Apple Pliers?

Rearrange the letters in certain kitchen appliances to spell a two-word term
(consisting of a proper name and a plural noun) that describes David, Jay, Jimmy,
Jimmy, Stephen, Seth, Jon and John.

What are these appliances and the two-word term?

Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz Entrees:

Pie Plates Negate Pilates!

Will Shortz’s February 8th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Michael Schwartz of Florence, Oregon, reads:

Name something in seven letters that’s designed to help you lose weight. Insert the letters EP somewhere inside this word to get a two-word phrase naming things that are likely to add weight. What words are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

~ A grand (4-letter-word) homer, 

~ a rookie-phenom-(4-letter-word)-kid, and 

~ a (7-letter-word) that is the “cathode” to the pitcher, who is the “anode.”

Rearrange the 15 letters in those three
missing words to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

What are the three words?

Who is the puzzle-maker?

Note: Entrees #2-through-#7 were composed and contributed by our friend Nodd, author of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria! 

ENTREE #2

Name something in 8 letters that is designed to help you lose weight. 

Replace one letter with the two letters “A” and “N” and rearrange the result to get something that is likely to add weight. What words are these?

ENTREE #3

Name something in 7 letters that some people do to lose weight. 

Insert an E somewhere inside this word to get
something that is likely to add weight. 

Then go back to the original word and replace one letter with the letters RO to get something else that is likely to add weight if you eat it a lot. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #4

Name something in 7 letters that some people do to lose weight. Insert an S somewhere and an L somewhere else to get a kind of eating that is likely to add weight if done often or with rich food. What words are these?

ENTREE #5

Name a two-word phrase that describes products designed to help you lose weight. 

Remove the last letter of each word and rearrange the remaining letters to spell a word

for something you probably should not do too much of if you want to lose weight. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #6

Name something in 7 letters that may help you lose weight. 

Remove the first letter and double what is now the first letter. 

Rearrange, inserting spaces as needed, to get a three-word phrase naming a method of food preparation that is unlikely to help you lose weight. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #7

Name something in 9 letters that's designed to help you lose weight. 

Remove two letters and rearrange to get some
things that are likely to add weight if you make a habit of eating a lot of them. 

What words are these?

ENTREE #8

Name a seven-letter word that may help you lose excess verbiage. 

Move the third letter to the beginning of the word to spell a new word, one that may help you lose excess avoirdupois. What are these two seven-letter words?

Hint: The first seven-letter word, properly applied, would eliminate all words like “avoirdupois” from your vocabulary and prose!

Dessert Menu

Just Serving Up A Just Dessert:

Service with a Simile: “As you like it” or “Like you like it!”

Those who serve drinks and those who  serve time have something in common?

What is it?

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Thursday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.