Bring back the Automat, I say:
Retro-Midcentury Modern design combining the Howard Johnson and the chrome diner and the Automat. Every table a booth. And on every table a miniature jukebox, glowing with the menu and corresponding buttons, and on the side of the juke a card-swiper. Ranks of clear plastic tubing lining the ceiling and walls, table-level model-train tracks discreetly ringing the restaurant: the tubes to convey the drinks, and the tracks the dishes. Jets of pop streaking overhead; watch your drink zipping and twisting to your cup over the length of the restaurant. And proceeding from the mysterious, unseen kitchen, a procession of 30" scale characters shuttling along the tracks bearing trays and dishes: a lovely fat Jersey cow; a plump, pink pig; a two-tone-with-chrome '56 Chevy in turquoise; a rocket from science fiction before the Moonshot, with fins and needle-nose and aerodynamic bulge, in unpainted aluminum alloy; an outsized Coke bottle and an outsized Heinz ketchup bottle; and the popular favorite, the classical 1950s "tin can on legs" robot -- pronounced "RO-but" after the Midcentury fashion -- waving his dryer-hose arms mechanically and superfluously.
The dumb-waiter trundles along the tracks to the table that placed its order, where it slows and halts, and waits patiently until a sensor detects that it's been relieved of the last of its order, whereupon it trundles off, around the loop until finally it vanishes into that inner sanctum which is the kitchen. And at the end a punchline: depress the "BUS TABLE" button at the bottom of the miniature jukebox and a caricature of a Midcentury garbage man materializes from the kitchen, proceeding along the tracks to the table in question and shaking his head judgmentally. Deposit your detritus on the tray mounted atop his scale classical aluminum trash can, tap his head twice, and away he goes, shaking his head at the mess you've made. "No substitutions. No cash or checks. No waiters, no tips. Take it as you find it, or take off. This is an automat. Thank you for your cooperation and your custom."
