Most restaurants have an inherent “theme” based on the origin or type of cuisine being served. Many restaurants have a different style of decoration and create a specific environment for the convenience of their customers. But not all restaurants are considered themed restaurants. Diners choose restaurants primarily based on the type of food.
On the contrary, themed restaurants attract customers primarily by promising unique experiences. Let's explore some of the most popular themed restaurants around the world. In Las Vegas, there is a restaurant where waitresses dress up as nurses and the kitchen serves unhealthy and heart-attack-causing food. Customers put on hospital gowns while waiting for stately, loaded burgers ranging from “Single Bypass” to an impressive “Octuple Bypass”. The French fries are cooked in pure butter, and the injections are served in those small plastic containers for prescription pills.
Customers who weigh more than 350 pounds eat for free. Tombstone should be considered a mandatory stop for any true Wild West enthusiast. The establishment is reportedly haunted and has an underground level where a worker spent years digging a tunnel through a secret entrance in a nearby silver mine. Visitors can dress in period attire and can freely take selfies at the bar or hung over the piano. The Wyatt Earp-style experience is accompanied by live music every night and the equally themed menu includes hamburgers, brisket and homemade chili.
And the Tombstone movie plays in an endless loop on the screens behind the bar. The Aquarium Restaurant is a unique restaurant with locations in Nashville, Denver, Kemah, and Houston. It combines a visit to the aquarium with a seafood restaurant. Fish is also at the center of the menu, with offerings such as clam soup, a lobster tower with avocado and black beans, and shrimp stuffed with crab. Several times a month, guests enjoy a show of “The Mystic Mermaid”, in which the “mermaids” dive into the tank and give a choreographed performance with music. Founded in 1931 as a pay-as-you-go coffee shop, Clifton's now serves as a multi-level bar with an impressive forest theme.
At the center of the space is a 40-foot-tall false sequoia; its base is located near the Monarch Bar on the second level and reaches the ceiling with reinforced branches designed to support aerialists. On the third level you will find the Gothic Bar, a reused altar from the 19th century, and on the fourth floor the offices were transformed into two more bar spaces, Treetops and the Pacific Seas with a tiki theme. Although it wasn't the first theme park, Disneyland popularized the idea of an amusement park that combined areas with several names (“lands”) with different themes. Following Hard Rock Cafe's successful theme of showcasing musical memorabilia, Planet Hollywood extended the concept to film in the 1990s, while adding celebrity endorsements and restaurant appearances. Tiki culture became very popular in the United States in the 1950s, and Polynesian-themed restaurants spread to London in the early 1960s and further to Europe and Asia in the early 1970s. For example, restaurants inspired by the United States of the 1950s usually have jukeboxes from that era, but some also limit their menus to hamburgers and fries, as would have been common at that time.
The restaurant is open to the general public, not just to park customers, something that makes it unique among restaurants that are part of an amusement park. In some cases, customers may visit a theme restaurant just for shopping or entertainment, without the intention of eating. Whether it's pumps, toilets, or trash, check out some strange themes and decor of restaurants around the world that have gone too far. Themed restaurants have potential to make big profits in a relatively short period of time by selling products. Don't expect something as busy as a restaurant in theme park itself like Super Nintendo World's Toadstool Cafe. By 1890s at least three different elaborately-themed nightclubs were operating in Paris with themes of death, hell and heaven.
Popular restaurant chains in United States such as Applebee's and Bennigan's despite having different consistent styles are not usually considered themed restaurants as they attract customers primarily with food they serve. The North American themed restaurant chain Medieval Times began on small island of Mallorca Spain in 1970s. Restaurants like John Sedlar's Rivera closed but acclaimed take us to Parisian countryside of mid-to-late 1880s where there were tree-house themed restaurants inspired by novel “Robinson Crusoe”. The two day experience focuses on what makes themed restaurant so appealing: opportunity to dine on delicious meal that is fun and helps transport customers to another time and place.
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