Top 7 Wackadoo Restaurant Themes that you'll Secretly Love

Restaurant themes are not an entirely new concept – they can be traced back to the 19th century when satire cabarets in Paris came into existence. The modern-day trend of themed restaurants can debatably be credited to London’s Hard Rock Café that opened its doors in 1971. Many other renowned restaurants have followed suit ever since ­– some nailing it on point, and some missing the mark by a mile.

Let’s pay a visit to 7 restaurants that have mind-boggling themes – from toilet seats, airplanes, prisons – everything and anything that has nothing to do with food. 

Modern Toilet

Are you weird enough to have a thing for simultaneous input and output? Then, welcome to Modern Toilet, the loo-themed restaurant that makes one think what a weird world we live in! It ain’t even a one-off oddity subdued to one locality, but indeed an infamous franchise across Asia. The original theme has even inspired some rip-offs all the way in California. How does it work, you ask? Well, just a bunch of cringed upon things served with your food. You sit on commodes instead of dining chairs, you drink soup off of a toilet bowl, a dingy bathtub gets your entrees, and of course, all your desserts look like poop… perfect icing on the cake!

All jokes apart, the restaurant is as hygienic as any other, and the theme indeed is hilarious in a way that it counters the saying, “Don’t s*** where you eat”. 

Opaque Restaurant

Opaque Restaurant theme is a rather deep concept, it originated in Europe and found its way to America. Customers get to dine in pitch darkness and are served by blind waiters. In a way, it allows one to experience what it’s like to be sightless. Contrary to the diners’ experience, where oftentimes they pick up the wrong cutlery or even miss their mouths while eating, the blind waiters however served the right dish to the right table with ease. It’s probably based on the belief that turning off the dominant sense of sight will enhance other senses and create a better appreciation of the flavors of your meal. Or what do I know, it could simply be because they got no budget for interior design or electricity bills.

Hibari Tei Café

Fancy yourself a little harmless submissive fantasy? In this peculiar restaurant, your waiters (mostly, men) are dressed up as female maids. Now there’s a backstory to this ­– according to the owner, one of their waitresses quit during the rush hour and a waiter had to fill in for her. Customers were amused by this act and it soon morphed into a regular happy hour to now a whole brand identity. With growing popularity, they opened up multiple outlets across the district of Akihabara, Tokyo. This one’s a bit of a bouncer to comprehend but to each their own right? 

Coach Dining

Necessity is truly the mother of invention. A couple from Shenyang, a city in North-East China, decided to open up a restaurant of their own. They had the spirit, they had talent, but all that was missing was brick or mortar for their Lil diner. Now we’ll never know the events leading up to the decision, but they woke up one day and purchased an old out-of-use train coach. They transformed the coach into a barbeque restaurant within their residential compound. The idea of eating inside a vehicle blew up out of proportions, making the diner a local favorite, not to undermine the luscious taste of their classic crispy meats. Probably this is what wise men meant when they said “When life throws you a lemon, make lemonade out of it”, except here it was a coach that they turned into a barbeque diner. 

Robot Restaurant

Now, this one could give restaurant workers some troubled sleep. The Robot restaurant that opened up in 2012 has got robots for chefs, waiters, cleaners, and everything in between. The robots vary in height and can be anything between 1.3 meters to 1.6 meters. They are capable of working for five straight hours after being electrically charged for merely 2 hours. So let me get this straight – a fully functional Robot who ain’t need any smoke breaks, lunch breaks, sick leaves, and needs only 2 hours of rest… with an added advantage of being a unique theme and attracting people from far and wide. Us mortals can’t compete with that, can we? 

Cabbages and Condoms

This one’s so out of touch with food, I’m not even mad about it. It’s just the world we live in folks, accept it. Your waiter appears with an inflated condom wrapped around his head in ‘Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant in Bangkok. The founder Mechai Viravaidya, better known as Mr. Condom, is of the opinion that the bizarre concept raises awareness about safe sex, but it’s also good for giggles. After your meal, you get condoms in place of dinner mins. So if your date opts for this restaurant for your date, you know what’s for dessert.

Also, what’s with the cabbage, you ask? Honestly, nobody knows and is often forgotten, which I can see why.

Flying at ground level

You don’t have to blow thousands of dollars to experience the business class treatment in airlines anymore. Special Enjoyment, a restaurant in China, is designed like a private room inside the classic A380 Airbus, with the egg-shaped chairs deconstructing into flat beds and all other unnecessary yet posh setups that we, regular people, watch in movies. It took off for its maiden flight in 2012 and has been a popular attraction ever since. 

With more people invested in the ambience of a place than the food they serve, restaurants are ramping up their creative appeal – because it’s all about the ‘experience’ when one decides to dine out with their friends and family for a quality time. Which of these wackadoo restaurants would you pick for your ideal date?