Page 35 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

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In addition, there are ethnically themed restaurant chains like the Olive Garden
restaurants (Italian) and Ricardo’s Mexican restaurants in the United States. These
26 involve playing up and tweaking symbols of ethnicity and in particular their
food-related expression. In the UK, there are standard formats for the ubiquitous
Indian restaurant such as flock wallpaper, zither music, plastercast models of
Indian gods, and so on. Indeed, these features have become such a cliché that
there is something of a trend whereby new restaurants self-consciously differentiate
themselves by not having them, for example, by adopting a more general, neutral
restaurant ambience.
By no means all themed restaurants are part of chains. There are many inde-
pendent restaurants that are loosely themed on sports as well as the ethnic them-
ing previously referred to. Shoval mentions the Cardo Culiniaria in old
Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter which advertises itself as ‘a “reconstruction” of an
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“authentic” Roman gastronomic experience’. The Cowshed Cafe advertises itself
as ‘New Zealand’s only restaurant in a once operating dairy shed (no shit)’. 31 The
CB Huntington Railroad Co. Family Fun Eatery in Bayville, New Jersey, is themed
on the American railroads and contains a working model and train memorabilia. 32
Mr. Bones is a restaurant on Holmes Beach in Florida which is themed on voodoo
and employs various macabre models to reinforce the theme. On entry, the diners
take their chosen bottle of beer from a coffin full of ice! The House of Mao restau-
rant in Singapore may have Hunan cuisine as its main attraction but is heavily
themed on Beijing (including real artefacts such as Mao and Communist Party
memorabilia), a Great Hall that is supposed to represent the Great Hall of the
People, chairs in red fabric that are supposed to refer to the collars on red army
uniforms, and the toilets are supposed to be like Chinese prison cells! 33
Themed restaurants also provide a prism through which to view some of the
pitfalls of theming as a differentiation strategy. After a period in which themed
restaurant chains rolled out more and more outlets and newcomers arrived on the
scene to participate in what was seen as an insatiable appetite for this genre of eat-
ing, around the turn of the millennium the eating public began to fall out of love
with them. Planet Hollywood was probably the most high profile casualty, filing
twice for bankruptcy, but there are many others too: the Fashion Cafe chain has
all but disappeared; the Dive! chain of nautically themed restaurants soon closed
down some of its outlets; some Official All Star Sports restaurants closed, even in
themed restaurant hotspots like Las Vegas; and there have been persistent indus-
try rumours of imminent closures and restaurants facing trouble. 34
Several reasons have been proffered for the sudden reversal in fortunes. One is
that restaurants rely a great deal on repeat business and therefore if the emphasis
is placed on the experience and entertaining guests, once they have enjoyed that
experience on one or two occasions they will move onto another theme or will
decide not to pay what they perceive to be the mark up for the entertainment
component. Second, some themes have a limited appeal or go out of fashion.