Gadling

The world is definitely about to get fully automated any day now. Just yesterday, I blogged about a German restaurant that's based solely on automated service: no waiters, no tipping.

Today, I have a new culinary efficiency concept for you: the self-tapping pub. Leave it up to the Czechs--the world's biggest beer consumers per capita--to invent a pub, where you don't even need a waiter to get your beer. What waste of time!

The customers at "The Pub", as the automated pub is actually called, can tap Pilsner Urquell beer from brewer Plzeňský Prazdroj at their tables, and a computer device on the tap keeps track of the standings of all tables in beer drinking. The scores are then projected onto a screen in the bar, Czech Business Weekly reports. The system enables customers to keep track of the beer drinking scores of all tables not only in the bar they are in, but also in all bars of the same chain across the Czech Republic. So far, they have branches in Prague, Pilsen, Hradec Kralove, Brno, Liberec, Karlovy Vary and Tabor.

The bars have Web cameras so that customers can see their competitors in different bars in the chain. They can also select which bar they would like to be in a beer drinking contest with and can send short messages via small screens on the tap. Needles to say, being able to see how much everyone else is drinking only promotes the competitive spirit among the pub guests. And that, I guess, is the idea.

The concept, started by two 24-year-old Czech men three years ago, has been been a smashing success in the Czech Republic. The chain might apparently soon be expanding to Poland, Russia and Italy.

Filed under: Food and Drink, Europe, Czech Republic