Restaurants of the Future?

The other night at work I was speaking with a customer which is quite a rare thing for me as I rarely have the time to engage in interesting conversation or I find the people rather uninteresting to begin with. But this person who is an experienced chef and has travelled around a bit fixing and designing food menus up is opening a business in the near future.

What it is going to be or how he described it to me is people are going to be able to go in one door , order their food which I didn't go in great detail with him , and then pay for it and leave. In other words rather than it be a drive thru like all the donut shops of the world are now , it is going to be a walk thru. There will be no sitting area , just a line of people ordering stuff and walking out with it. Now I suppose him being a classical chef and all it will not be your sandwich fare but then again I cannot see how you can cook something up pronto like Steak Diane done medium in a couple of minutes.

His reasoning for opening something of this sort is with very little overhead and it being basically two employees the opening investment of $50,000 can be quickly recuperated within 3 months. He knows of only one other restaurant like this and it clears between 20-$30,000 a month. I guess a $1,000 a day is realistic.

So from what I gather this might be only be salad , soup , and sandwiches and it might only be a day time operation.

However we might feel about something like this it serves some important needs and it takes eating out to a new level. Albeit for me a scary one.

First with such little overhead , the prices must be reasonable and with less disposable income to go around people are looking more and more for the best deal. Second the issue of time comes into play with less of it available to most when even the time to pack a lunch before heading to work is passed up. So a good lunch ends up to be some greasy , fat food instead. So the issue of time and diet is dealt with in a positive way.

Environmentally there is a plus as well as no cars will be idling in long lines as they do in drive thrus right now. Some cities are starting to hate the line up of cars so much they are starting to ban drive thrus right now. This restaurant you will have to physically walk in. This also may encourage people to actually physically do something for them self by walking for their food each day.

So you have value for money , time , environment , exercise , and diet rolled up in one.

The big disadvantage is if the world just becomes a big walk through my job as a waiter has vanished!

But tell me isn't the job of an experienced waiter vanishing already. No matter how much experience you have accumulated over the years we are being replaced by the waiter of today who wears a microphone and who takes your order over an intercom then a couple of minutes later hands you your food and collects your money.

All the attention nowadays is to get whatever someone orders into their hands as quick as possible with as little attention to service as possible during the process. Trim the staff and other overhead as thin as possible so the owner can pocket as much as possible. It is almost so simple the service nowadays that anyone can do it.

I am saying it is gone from the gueridon service where showmanship and professionalism mixed with experience got you a great waiter position like back in the 70's to now where a majority of people are working the microphones in drive thrus. You now see a lot of seniors working as waiters to do something part time in their retired years who have never had experience doing this sort of work.

So my question is , are the days of Fine Dining over for most places within a few years when they will only be used for special occasions like weddings , birthday parties and christenings and will the walk thru become the way of the future in the next 20 years?

Who knows with the high cost of everything a restaurant owner has to endure to make an operation profitable the a la carte restaurant may just be a thing of the past in the near future.