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Japanese restaurant's unusual rule: You get what the person before you ordered.

by Aaron Hotfelder (RSS feed) on Oct 10th 2009 at 9:00AM

"If you wander around anywhere in Japan for a little bit," writes blogger Cabel Sasser, "you will come across something interesting.

Providing even more evidence for the veracity of that statement, as if more were needed, is the Kashiwa Mystery Cafe in southern Japan. What's so unusual about this restaurant?

Well, I'll let Cabel Sasser explain it: "At this cafe, you get what the person before you ordered. The next person gets what you ordered."

What a wonderful, bizarre idea (especially if you ignore the unresolved question of what the first customer of the day receives.) When you order, say, an ice cream and coffee, you pay for them and find a seat. In a few minutes, you're called to the counter where you pick up, you guessed it, not an ice cream and coffee. You receive whatever the person before you in line ordered.

Gallery: Japanese Food

So what's to keep people from ordering an inexpensive item and hoping the person before them was a high-roller? Well, I guess shame. Also, the cafe has a few rules. Among them:

Treat the next person. What to treat them with? It's your choice.
No buying twice in a row.
Please enjoy what you get, even if you hate it. (If you really, really hate it, quietly give it to another while saying, "It's my treat...")

Like the long tables at German beer halls where sitting with strangers is expected, this is an idea that Sasser says "encouraged communication between total strangers or, in this case, members of the Kashiwa community and a couple of weird guys from Oregon." He says it "forced one to 'let go', just for a brief moment, of the total control we're so used to exerting through commerce. It led you to taste something new, that you might not normally have ordered. It was a delight."

Read about the experience here.

Filed under: Food and Drink, Japan

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Andi Oct 10th 2009 5:31PM

That sounds like fun. I just wonder if they have protocols for someone with food allergies.

nom Oct 12th 2009 2:14AM

In Japan protocol feeds you

martha Oct 10th 2009 6:18PM

Mcdonalds has been doing this for years. Not news.

Kevin Oct 12th 2009 2:19AM

MCD has been doing this for years? MCD gives you what the person before you ordered not what you ordered? if that was true they won't post that sign that says something like "if you aren't satisfied with your meal 100% then we will be gladly to refund or make it right till you"

unless you mean MCD always givivn you the wrong order then i would agree HA

richard Oct 10th 2009 11:24PM

What does the very first customer of the day get? Nothing?

thpth Oct 11th 2009 3:10AM

That's an easy one. The first person of the day receives what the last person of the day before ordered. And I assume that the grand opening of the restaurant, the employees just picked a random first meal.

R.B. Oct 11th 2009 10:29AM

Obviously he'd get what the last person the day before ordered.

Johnny Oct 17th 2009 11:16AM

so what does the very first customer of a new restaurant that just open get?

Peter Dagenais Oct 11th 2009 1:01PM

He gets an air coffee.

drdandi Oct 11th 2009 12:48PM

well the first person can order and wait for the next customer to come and then order something and then the first customer will again go and order...

fairlyodd.wordpress.com Oct 11th 2009 10:58AM

I would order the grossest thing on the menu...

naepflin Oct 11th 2009 8:24PM

I'd happily try what you consider the grossest thing on the menu!

Scott Carmichael Oct 11th 2009 8:54PM

Sadly, the person before you probably beat you to it.

Jose Canseco Oct 11th 2009 11:45AM

modeled after Mystery Google! http://www.mysterygoogle.com/

Lang Oct 11th 2009 8:24PM

This just combines everything I like. Food and being surprised.

Stumped Oct 23rd 2009 4:29AM

So the restaurant just serves you whatever they want and say that it's what the previous person ordered. How would you know? Does that even matter?

lori Oct 25th 2009 9:50PM

I'm pretty sure the till tapes would say what was ordered before.

Pikey Oct 27th 2009 5:11PM

I love this idea. In my office, when we go for lunch, I never want to make the decision which restaurant to go, let alone what to order. I love the surprise of turning up at a place and being fed. Or is that laziness?

Stumped Oct 30th 2009 9:16PM

Well done for missing the point.

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