LA Daily News Article - Atari founder rolls out new games for adults at his bistro
Daily News
Atari founder rolls out new games for adults at his bistro
uWink nightspot mixes food, fun
By Julia M. Scott
Staff Writer
WOODLAND HILLS - Nolan Bushnell, inventor of Atari video games and Chuck E. Cheese’s, is know for his futuristic imagination.
But his latest creation goes back in time.
Bushnell’s restaurant and bar, uWink, opening today at the Westfield promenade, focuses on two primal needs: food and fun.
“From the earliest caveman, food has been a part of it,” said Bushnell, 63, as uWink employees whizzed around him. “Before computers, entertainment was chanting, drumming, sports and storytelling.”
Now, the experience is delivered via cutting-edge technology.
Customers order food and drink on touch-screen computers built into their tables. Diners who want extra cheese on their pizza or a sandwich sans mustard can modify their order via the computer, which also makes cocktail recommendations based on a personality quiz.
While waiting for meals, customers can play games on the table computers. The games are not free, but diners earn credits as their tab rises. If folks just want to play games, rates vary between #4 and $8 an hour.
Bushnell poured $10 million into creating 72 games for uWink, and he knows just how much he needs to get out of each person who walks in the door to make the nightspot viable.
Bushnell’s concept has interested many in the restaurant business, said analyst Randall Hiatt of the consulting firm Fessel International in Costa Mesa.
“He’s a very innovative guy, and he’s sort of pushing the edge,” Hiatt said. “If you look at the items individually, they’ve been tried. It’s the combination that’s new.”
Bushnell bristles at the suggestion that uWink is an adult version of Chuck E. Cheese’s or similar to the restaurant chain Dave & Buster’s, which has arcade games.
“This is a social experience, not a game experience,” Bushnell said.
If the traditional sports bar appeals to men, uWink aims to attract women.
The on-screen entertainment eschews the violence of electronic gaming for diversions that reward pop-culture hounds.
“Zillionaire” resembles the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” In “Survey,” diners are polled for their favorite television show or movie during the past week. “Comedy” offers a brief reel of up-and-coming jokesters, and “The Dish” shares bits of celebrity gossip.
Projectors shine slow-moving shots of dewey petals and intricate geometric patters around the restaurant, which seats 160 and has a mini stage for trivia nights.
The menu includes lightly friend tuna sushi rolls with avocado and green onion for $6.95, tangy shrimp pizza with sourdough crust for $11.95, and three pulled-pork mini burgers for $8.25.
For the less adventurous, uWink serves a Cobb salad for $10.50, mac and cheese for $9.25 and a turkey club for $9.75.
Runners, not waiters, bring out the food.
Bushnell chose the Woodland Hills location because two successful restaurants are ther and because the AMC 16 movie theater draws thousands. In coming months he hopes to open two to three more locations.
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October 13th, 2006 at 8:24 am
be very careful about putting texas holdem as one of the games on this system. i believe it already is. people will never leave.
October 13th, 2006 at 8:26 am
ah wait. scratch that. they can’t continue playing without continuing to buy more food/drinks or just paying separately. if everyone is playing texas holdem though, not quite sure that plays into attracting the female 20-35 crowd.
October 13th, 2006 at 8:26 am
hopefully that 6 person game table supports texas holdem. that would be nice.
October 13th, 2006 at 8:27 am
actually you need personal screens to not show the cards at the game table. the 18 page uwink brochure i believe showed it in use.
October 13th, 2006 at 9:01 am
the reason i think the ordering system from a customer perspective is a benefit is because it removes many of the annoying, time consuming elements of a typical restuarant.
1. after being seated or findind a table yourself, waiting for a waitress to take the order.
2. having to flag down the waitress for refills, more drinks, more dishes, etc.
3. not having the ablility to take a bit longer to decide what you want.
4. having to flag down the waitress so that you can get the bill, then put your payment inside, then wait for the waitress to pick up your payment, then the waitress processes the bill and returns, and you pay the tip/get the receipt. seems much improved with uwink’s system of simply logging out of the table and paying. specificlaly for a work week lunch, this seems like it would really cut on time.
5. having the waitress come by 3 times while you are eating for the purpose of seeing if you need anything else and making sure they get a good tip. the ordering screen solves that. i don’t need someone to keep coming by and asking, i simply order it from the screen.
6. not seeing the same boring menu over and over. obviously if there are physical menus the restaurant does not want to keep changing them. with interactive menus, this is an opportunity for introducing new items to the menu with less cost. would love to also see them ask customers from a list of choices what things they would like to see on the menu. would also like to see the menu show some of the ordering statistics to the customers. meaning next to each item, how often that item is ordered. would also be interesting to see suggested meals based on other’s experiences. meaning if another group of 4 friends ate at uwink and love what they ordered all the way from appetizers to desserts, would be nice if they could share that combination as a suggestion to others. obviously you can’t literally show all suggestions, but maybe you could have people rate their total meals overall and then display the highest rated dishes or combinations. for example, if you are in a brand new restaurant and you are totally unfamiliar with the food there, but you don’t want to go through this trial and error process of ordreing food there many times before you find
the things that are really good, it would be great to be able to sit down and say show me the highest rated foods on the menu.
and bam you instantly benefit from the experience other customers have had without having to relearn their mistakes.