9 Surprising Restaurants We Can't Stop Talking About

Polynesian Chick fil A have finally come true. And uh, I actually think we need to make a pilgrimage to this place. It's called true It's Luo, and it's known as the most Hawaiian Chick fil A outside Hawaii. And for the record, it's in Fayetteville, Georgia, and it's named for a Chick fil A founder, Truett Cathy, And apparently true It had this dream of bringing Hawaii to Fayetteville, so he built this massive Chick fil A. He filled it with waterfalls and South Pacific totems and also, for

some reason, they're alligator heads on the wall. That part. Yeah, But Shrewd actually hand picked all the decor. And while the menu features everything you can get at a traditional Chick fil a, there's also like plenty of food with Polynesian flair. So you've got like skewered shrimp kalu, a pork pineapple top burgers, and you can wash all that down with a frosty pineapple drink. Yeah, that's just the first of nine restaurants we never could have dreamed up

that will be covering today, So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm joined by my good friend Manges Ticketer. Unfortunately I'm not fully joined by my voice today, so I apologize in advance. But who I am joined by Mango, sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing a pizza hat. I didn't know that, said, I guess it's a pizza Hut knockoff. And Iran, were you familiar with this Mega? I was not.

I was not either. Well that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, always introducing us to new things. So all right, well, I know we're talking about strange restaurants again. But before we get started, we wanted to tell our listeners that we're actually doing a live performance very soon. Yeah, that's right. We're actually coming to Philly, which is right near my home state of Delaware for those of you who don't know where Philadelphia is. But we'll be there on July

first for the Philly Podcast Festival. And we're actually playing at the Trocadero, which is just so insane to me. So I've heard of this theater, but I don't know a ton about it. So why do you say it's insane? I mean it's insane to me because it's where my friends and I used to go to concerts when I was in high school, Like we'd see Rusted Rude or

Back or Um, Sarah McLaughlin Very Naked Ladies. Lisa Lope mostly was free tickets we got from the local radio station, but it was pretty great, and to be playing there is pretty amazing to me. And I think we're actually opening for Lisa Lobe, aren't we as that I believe that's true. Well maybe not, but we aren't going to be alone. We're actually gonna be there with our good friends Ben and Null from Ridiculous History, one of our

favorite podcast two of our favorite people. It's gonna be a blast, so we'll be part of the same show. The show is at four pm on Sunday, July one, so we're just days away from this, and you can get your tickets at Philly Podfest dot com. Again. That's Philly Podfest dot com July one, four pm. We hope to see you guys there. It's gonna be so fun. Oh, I can't wait. And I promised to have my full voice by that point. I'm just just saving it. I'm I'm only using part of my voice for that reason,

just to say enough for the show. Anyway, Mano, I'm curious, why did you want to talk about these theme restaurants today? So part of it for me is that I'm just fascinated that these places are willing to stake their entire success on like the novelty of a gimmick, you know. And I'm also just kind of like amazed when it works.

So I was talking to one of my friends last night and he he's originally from Kosovo, and he was saying that he took his family to Baltimore and they couldn't find a place to eat, and then they finally spotted Dick's Last resort, which you know is famous for the waiters kind of being rude to you. And he was sitting at the table and the waiter just threw straws at him and napkins at end, and he didn't know what was going on, and he was so insulted, and he told me, like all the things that were

racing through his mind. He was like, I don't owe money to anyone in Baltimore. I don't have a bad reputation here, Like, why is this waiter being so rude to me specifically? And you know he's got three young kids. He was honestly afraid he was going to get into fist fight. And then I think someone confessed that it was just a gimmick. But I love that some entrepreneur out there years ago, I thought, you know, what people really want is to be treated super badly by obnoxious waiters.

And for whatever reason, that guy was right, Like there's seven or eight Dick's restaurants around the world, and I feel like they're doing great. Really actually didn't know this. I've I've honestly never been to one. I remember we had a friend that would would rave about it and always thought it was a fun idea. Have you been to one before? I haven't been to one either. Huh. Well what a strange concept. Well it makes sense why you wanted to do today's topic. So, um, why don't

we let you go first? What what restaurant do you want to talk about first? How about this heart Attack Grill in Vegas? So I'm so confused by this place, and it's definitely something I'm more interested in talking about than visiting. But the heart Attack Grill is a hospital teamed restaurant where if you're over three pounds or if an actual heart attack occurs during your meal, you get to eat for free. What so if if just anyone in the restaurant has a heart attack, then you get

to teach your meal for free. Is that the I haven't looked into the fine print. I know it's known as a meal to die for, but I don't know if it's anywhere in the restaurant or just at your table. I also love that it's you said, a hospital themed restaurant, Like if it's just so strange, but weirdly, I kind of want to check this out. But anyway, tell me more about it. Yeah, so everyone's dressed up like nurses, and the burgers come in categories of like single, double,

or triple bypass. In fact, it goes all the way up to an octoobole bypass burger, but sort of the middle of the road burger is the quadruple bypass burger. And it comes with four half pound beef patties, twenty strips of bacon, eight slices of American cheese, and there's a whole tomato in there, which might be the healthiest part how And I just imagine that it's not even sliced up. It's just like a whole tomato just kind

of squished into there. Yeah. I mean, if you want to compliment it with something else, you can also get like candy cigarettes with your meal. Those are available to what a bizarre place, all right, Well, speaking in places I probably won't visit. Did you know that the North Korean government actually runs a bunch of state run food joints in other countries, So it's actually kind of their way to promote soft power and get people interested in

North Korean culture. So if you go there, there's these women servers. They're actually all women, and they're dressed in traditional guard so they'll seeing and they'll play instruments for the diners. And so you can find these Pyongyang cafes in places like Russia and China. But the biggest reason

for them isn't actually the propaganda. It's the cash. So the meals they're costs around thirty bucks or so, and you know, the food is supposed to be pretty good, but the restaurants actually generate about a hundred to three hundred thousand dollars for the North Korean government, which it desperately needs for its coffers. Now, there's one other thing about this, if you ever find yourself in one of these places, is that you're not allowed to take photos

when you're inside of one of them. Oh that's crazy, and I don't think I'll ever be going, but probably you know. Um So, one of these things you hear in Brooklyn Live is that people are just crazy for poutine. I know people like it all over the country too, but um these are these like fries with cheese, kurds

and gravy, and they come from Canada. And as I was looking up this story, I actually found that the guy who invented poutine has a frame certificate it from the Canadian Intellectual Property council at this restaurant, like it's just up there on the wall to show everyone he invented poutine. Anyway, that this isn't about that restaurant, but about a fast food place in Quebec called shay Ashton.

And the reason it's interesting to me is that it actually has a poutine menu that varies with the temperature. So if the temperature is negative thirty degrees celsius, First of all, can you imagine having to live anywhere where it can get and will not ever test that out? That just sounds like such a mistake. But if it goes to negative thirty degrees celsius, then you get a thirty percent discount on the poutine, and for every negative

degree you get a full percent off. Like I just can't imagine rooting for it to get colder just so I could get some fries. But apparently it works. Wow. All right, Well here's one on the opposite side of the spectrum, and I'm actually really into this idea. So normally a shoes off place might throw some people off.

But in the Philippines, in a place called Via Escudero in the city of Tien, there's this waterfalls restaurant, and the restaurant is shoes free, because all of the tables, like these beautiful picnic tables there in the middle of this small river, and they're surrounded by these giant waterfalls, and the cook stations are actually right there too. It's

actually this really stunning setting. And not only are the guests encouraged to dunk their heads in the rushing water in order to cool off, but they're exotic birds you can spot from the location. And of course the fish, not surprisingly is incredibly fresh. That sounds pretty fun. It actually reminds me of this place Christopher told me about that sounds insane. It's called Eta, which I guess it means Mother of Pearl, and it's the world's first all

glass undersea restaurant. It's basically this panoramic view of the sea in the Maldives, and it's five ms below sea level and people have actually said it's kind of like tumbling down a tropical version of Alice in Wonderland, like down the rabbit Hole. I've seen photos. It's honestly so beautiful, like the roof is domed glass, and their schools of fish just swimming around you. Apparently the trickiest part for maintaining the restaurant is that both sides of the glass

have to be cleaned every day. But being there is this really intimate experience. There's only ever space for fourteen diners. You can also only eat there if you spend a night in the hotel that's adjacent, which starts at seven pounds a night. But if you've ever wondered what it's like to eat your meal in a giant fish tank, like this is the closest you'll get to that experience. That does sound like a pretty neat thing. Like, I know that's expensive to be there, but I could see

why people would want to pay that. I mean, it just seems like something you couldn't experience anywhere else. Yeah, I mean it's almost like you're in the submarine in life aquatic. They're the way it's all set up. It's pretty incredible. All right. Well, here's one I really wish still existed, and it doesn't anymore, though there's some hope that it might come back at some point. And it was just called Tim's Place, and it was owned and run by a young guy named Tim Harris. It was

a breakfast and lunch place. It was in Albuquerque, and it had this delicious food with a Southwestern flare and had all these great reviews on yellop in places like that. But what makes it so interesting is that it was the first restaurant owned and operated by someone with Down syndrome. So Tim is a special Olympian. He likes to jokingly point out that he has more medals than Michael Phelps. I mean, that's that's pretty impressive, a lot of it.

That's a lot of metals. But what makes the place even more special is that he liked to give hugs with every meal, and he'd given out something like it was like eighteen thousand hugs before the place eventually closed. Oh. I love that story, and it's a shame it closed. Yeah, But you know, the reason it actually closed was because Tim was in a relationship at the time, and it was a long distance relationship, so he decided to choose love over food, and in fact, he often said food

is food. But what made his place special was all the hugs. How great is that? That's so great? Okay, well, we've got two more facts to give up before we do, let's take a little break. Welcome back to part time Genius where we're talking about strange and fun restaurants we'd love to visit or at least peek into. So, well, you've just told us about Tim's restaurant, which sounds amazing, but you know, in that same feel good vein, I just read about John bon Jovi's Soul Kitchen. Have you

heard about this place? You know? I don't know that I've heard about anything related to John bon Jovi in quite a while, so I didn't know he was in the food business though either. Yeah, well, I just read a story on Tony bon Jovi, so read about something related to John bon Jovi, but not food anyway. He's actually got two of these places, And at first blush there were like celebrity chefs from Top Chef there and it just seems kind of fancy and the food look great,

but I just wasn't that impressed. But then I've read that it's basically set up for people in need, so you can pay for the meal like a regular restaurant, or if you're hard up, you can volunteer in the back of the restaurant for an hour and have your

complete meal paid for. They've actually served over eight meals that way, and you know, for those of us who can't pay, you can also volunteer your time there and donate it, or if you're struggling, you can volunteer and pay for your meal that way, and they just give away a lot of really great food. It's kind of remarkable and it made me like bon Jovis so much more. Yeah,

that's pretty neat. Well, I'm glad we've got all the heartwarming stuff out of the way because I got one last one that I want to talk about, and that's these roller coaster restaurants. So I just hearing that title, like, it can't be where you get on a roller coaster and then have a meal served to you during the loop de loops, right, because that seems like a terrible idea.

It might sound like a terrible idea. It was something I probably would try that was a fan of roller coasters, But now this is this is very different, and I guess this is a chain restaurant and they're in all sorts of fancy cities like Vienna, so Chi, Dubai, like all over the place. But basically you order your food on an iPad and then the food and drinks goes

on this roller coasters around your table. Like, I don't even know how this works exactly, because the tracks have these winding loops and crazy turns, and honestly, you would think the food would just spill everywhere like on its way to you, But it just pulls right up in

front of you. That's pretty amazing. You know. I used to get a thrill from watching those like sushi boats at restaurants, especially in San Francisco, where they slowly move and you can just plucked the sushi off the floating boats. But I don't know, like a roller coaster seems so much crazier. But who do you think wins this week? You know, I was thinking my Tim's Diner fact was pretty good and maybe that should take it. Your bon Jovi soul food thing was probably a little bit better,

especially since it's still around. But you know, this week, I feel like we should give the trophy to Christopher hasiotis he he did a ton of work in helping out with the research for this episode. I'm totally for it. We should buy him a gift certificate to Pizza Hat. That's a great all right, Well, one more reminder, we hope to see anyone that's in the Philadelphia area at our show at the Trocadero on July one at four pm, and you can get those tickets at Philly pod fest

dot com. But we'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow m