Nolan Bushnell founded Atari games in the 1970s, then sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million in 1976. Then, he concentrated on his chain of pizza restaurants, called Chuck E. Cheese’s, which still operate under different management.
Today, Bushnell is trying a modified concept for the adult market, with his first uWink restaurant in suburban Los Angeles. At the center of each table is a touch-screen console on which patrons order their drinks and meals.
“What we want to do is to make, first of all, a very, very good restaurant - good food, good fun,” said Nolan Bushnell. “But the automatic ordering makes it so that the fun actually starts when you are ordering your food. It is faster, it is easier, and it is actually more controllable than a waiter-waitress kind of a experience.”
The computer console is also a labor-saving device. The electronic ordering system reduces the number of servers needed in the restaurant.
Patrons can play games as they wait for their food or after they finish eating, testing their knowledge of trivia, or taking a three-dimensional tour of the world’s historic sites.
Bushnell plans to extend uWinks across the United States with both company-owned restaurants and a franchise operation, then move into Asia and Europe. He says customers seem to like the concept. In one recent week, 3,500 patrons dined on burgers, salads and pasta, and played 60,000 games.
Photo by uWink.
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