Your meal via an E ticket ride
April 9, 2008 9:53 AM Subscribe
Waiterless restaurants: Over a hundred years ago, you could get the food yourself. Now your meal can come to you, riding down little rollercoasters at 's Baggers
Here in Philadelphia, we have conveyor belt sushi.
posted by VicNebulous at 10:05 AM on April 9, 2008
posted by VicNebulous at 10:05 AM on April 9, 2008
Ask anyone who knows me better than they want to and they'll tell you I've long been an advocate of a system like this. My concept was entirely "on the level", so to speak, using model electric trains, but roller coasters are cooler, though a little slow. Presumably you order via...wait, I see it now: Customers use touch-screen TVs to browse the menu and choose their meal.
/me cries with happiness
posted by DU at 10:10 AM on April 9, 2008
/me cries with happiness
posted by DU at 10:10 AM on April 9, 2008
VicNebulous Not just Philly, its all over the place in Tokyo and pretty much any other place with a large sushi eating population. I always liked the term "sushi-go-round" to describe such a restaurant, it sounds kinda cheerful and happy.
And, if you're in Tokyo, and looking for some semi-decent sushi at a low price, and you'd like to eat at a place that portrays malevolant water demons as cheerful bowtie wearing mascots, I recommend Kappazushi. It tastes better than you'd expect for ¥100 a plate! [1]
As for the German restaurant, I can definately see fast food going that way. Er, the touchscreens to order I meant, not the Rube Goldberg machines to get it to your table.
[1] With slogans like that I should be an ad writer.
posted by sotonohito at 10:29 AM on April 9, 2008
And, if you're in Tokyo, and looking for some semi-decent sushi at a low price, and you'd like to eat at a place that portrays malevolant water demons as cheerful bowtie wearing mascots, I recommend Kappazushi. It tastes better than you'd expect for ¥100 a plate! [1]
As for the German restaurant, I can definately see fast food going that way. Er, the touchscreens to order I meant, not the Rube Goldberg machines to get it to your table.
[1] With slogans like that I should be an ad writer.
posted by sotonohito at 10:29 AM on April 9, 2008
This looks great.
While I understand that some people enjoy the being served aspect of going out to eat, it sometimes makes me feel a bit weird. Why is there a person whose job it is to carry my food from point A to point B? I'm just sitting there, so I'd be quite happy to take a little walk to pick up some food. I don't feel that I ought to be served.
posted by ssg at 10:48 AM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]
While I understand that some people enjoy the being served aspect of going out to eat, it sometimes makes me feel a bit weird. Why is there a person whose job it is to carry my food from point A to point B? I'm just sitting there, so I'd be quite happy to take a little walk to pick up some food. I don't feel that I ought to be served.
posted by ssg at 10:48 AM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]
Wow. The Choo Choo Restaurant is still there in Des Plaines, Illinois. Nothing's cooler than burger delivered by train.
Although burger delivered by pneumatic tube at the Safe House in Milwaukee is pretty cool, too.
posted by Gucky at 11:05 AM on April 9, 2008
Although burger delivered by pneumatic tube at the Safe House in Milwaukee is pretty cool, too.
posted by Gucky at 11:05 AM on April 9, 2008
Another restaurant that used a train was discussed at some length in this AskMe thread. Oddly, no one in that thread mentioned the elevated, G-scale train that ran above the end of every table. Maybe it's because the restaurant stopped rail deliveries not long after it opened.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:21 AM on April 9, 2008
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:21 AM on April 9, 2008
Damn Germans will go to any lengths to avoid tipping.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:27 AM on April 9, 2008
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:27 AM on April 9, 2008
That coaster is WAY too slow. Someone could pour me a real pint and serve it to me much quicker. I don't want my beer getting warm in the ten minutes it takes to do 30 loops down a pole.
posted by Democritus at 11:39 AM on April 9, 2008
posted by Democritus at 11:39 AM on April 9, 2008
Someone could pour me a real pint and serve it to me much quicker.
If you can get a waitron to come to your table, that is.
posted by DU at 11:41 AM on April 9, 2008
If you can get a waitron to come to your table, that is.
posted by DU at 11:41 AM on April 9, 2008
It'd be cooler if there were no plates or containers or bottles, and you just opened your mouth and waited at the end of the little tracks.
posted by PlusDistance at 12:11 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by PlusDistance at 12:11 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]
It'd be cooler if there were no plates or containers or bottles, and you just opened your mouth and waited at the end of the little tracks.
Plus, the view of your gaping maw at the end of the tracks would terrify all the little people riding the food.
posted by davejay at 12:16 PM on April 9, 2008 [2 favorites]
The little people riding the food knew it was a suicide mission when they took it.
posted by PlusDistance at 12:31 PM on April 9, 2008
posted by PlusDistance at 12:31 PM on April 9, 2008
This makes total sense and I think it would make for a better, more relaxed experience. Ever since I read about this technolody a year or so ago (in regards to the table top touch screens) I've hoped to see them in some of my favorite places. Especially if you also had internet access and could find customer reviews on other sites so you don't have to trust the waitress that the grilled tuna is "out of this world!".
As long is it doesn't make to the bar. I hold my relationships with a good bartender to be sacred and would be very sad to lose that.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 1:34 PM on April 9, 2008
As long is it doesn't make to the bar. I hold my relationships with a good bartender to be sacred and would be very sad to lose that.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 1:34 PM on April 9, 2008
As long is it doesn't make to the bar. I hold my relationships with a good bartender to be sacred and would be very sad to lose that.
In Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano" bartenders were one of the few jobs still available to humans for that very reason.
posted by SBMike at 1:48 PM on April 9, 2008
In Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano" bartenders were one of the few jobs still available to humans for that very reason.
posted by SBMike at 1:48 PM on April 9, 2008
Pod sucks, but conveyor belt sushi is cool. H&H automat was the bees knees.
posted by fixedgear at 3:39 PM on April 9, 2008
posted by fixedgear at 3:39 PM on April 9, 2008
This is cool, but I want food to come in tubes, right to my table. Or some sort of giant hamster water container, you nudge it with your face and food comes out.
There's an SNL skit called the Trough and Brew, where you mush your face in a giant trough at a restaurant, and the staff throws buckets of food at you.
Laugh now, but these are the restaurants of TOMORROW!
posted by joelf at 3:52 PM on April 9, 2008
There's an SNL skit called the Trough and Brew, where you mush your face in a giant trough at a restaurant, and the staff throws buckets of food at you.
Laugh now, but these are the restaurants of TOMORROW!
posted by joelf at 3:52 PM on April 9, 2008
See, I had a great idea for the restaurant of tomorrow. You have one big conveyor belt/ moving sidewalk. People get in line and are never seated- there are no tables, just this one moving sidewalk, looping through the main room. People just stand as they are whisked around, with hoses dangling from the ceiling dropping various food-flavored nutrient pellets down upon the customers. Simply turn your head up and catch what you can while you're moving through the restaurant, then pay at the end of the conveyor belt. The beauty of this is, no matter how busy the restaurant gets, you'll never have to wait for a table: as soon as you're in line, you're seated! It would, of course, be a prix fixe menu.
I'm a goddamn genius.
posted by hincandenza at 4:36 PM on April 9, 2008
I'm a goddamn genius.
posted by hincandenza at 4:36 PM on April 9, 2008
We had a conveyer belt sushi restaurant in NYC in the 80s.
posted by mike3k at 6:30 PM on April 9, 2008
posted by mike3k at 6:30 PM on April 9, 2008
I want one of those near me.
I'd get drunk, go in and pick at everyone's lunches as they whizzed by.
Who am I kidding, I'd do it sober.
posted by Inversehelix at 8:45 PM on April 9, 2008
I'd get drunk, go in and pick at everyone's lunches as they whizzed by.
Who am I kidding, I'd do it sober.
posted by Inversehelix at 8:45 PM on April 9, 2008
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If not relevant, perhaps at least still awesome.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 9:58 AM on April 9, 2008