November 12, 1996: Apple lays out a wild plan to get into the restaurant enterprise, saying it’s going to open a sequence of Apple Cafes with a touchscreen point-of-sale system.
A bit like future Apple retail shops — however with out the computer systems and iPhones on the market — the eating places would open in cities all over the world. The primary, Apple says, might be a 15,000-square-foot restaurant in Los Angeles, opening in late 1997.
Spoiler alert: None of this occurs.
Apple Cafe: The geek’s Planet Hollywood
Apple partnered with London firm Mega Bytes Worldwide BVI for its ill-fated restaurant endeavor. The concept was, basically, to determine a sequence of high-profile cybercafes. The idea held a whole lot of enchantment at a time when solely 23% of U.S. residents loved the web at dwelling. (At present, that determine stands at over 90%.)
At a time when theme eating places like Planet Hollywood have been going gangbusters, the idea of hooking up with a tech firm — albeit an ailing one — to promote meals appeared as severe as plenty of dot-com period enterprise plans.
The retro-styled Apple Cafes would boast seating for round 250 patrons. Prospects would benefit from web connections, CD-ROM entry and FaceTime-style videoconferencing between tables. Small retailers inside the eating places would promote Apple merchandise and software program. Alongside Los Angeles, Apple scouted potential areas in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Sydney.
Picture: Apple/Mega Bytes
Apple Cafes: Not completely loopy
The Apple Cafe plan appears like a wacky concept now. Nonetheless, the thought of a pc firm working a restaurant chain isn’t fairly as clearly doomed as it would sound.
Chuck E. Cheese’s, which initially constructed its identify on combining meals, animated leisure, and an indoor video arcade, was began in 1977 by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell — aka the one who gave Steve Jobs certainly one of his first huge breaks within the tech business.
Apple’s plan to open theme eating places doesn’t pan out
In the end, nevertheless, the Apple Cafe idea sputtered to a halt. Like Apple’s makes an attempt to launch a videogame console and a line of private knowledge assistants — or to license Mac OS to different firms or construct a Macintosh that was additionally a TV — the Apple Cafe is resigned to an period broadly thought-about to be the “unhealthy outdated days.”
The next 12 months, Apple co-founder Jobs got here again to Cupertino. He properly streamlined all of the distracting aspect tasks in favor of constructing merchandise just like the colourful iMac G3.
On steadiness, we will’t say that’s the improper concept. Despite the fact that we completely would have stopped by for a plate of tacOS and Jony Chive dip!
Picture: Apple/Mega Bytes