With the explosion of corporate chain restaurants modeled after similar concepts, dining out in America is becoming a somewhat humdrum routine.
Food alone doesn't necessarily make a meal — and thankfully there are a few eateries around the country employing offbeat and, in some cases, downright bizarre approaches guaranteed to add some fun and excitement to your dining experience.
Here are eight nontraditional favorites, each offering a dining adventure that extends way beyond your taste buds.
1. Opaque
With locations in Santa Monica, San Diego, San Francisco, New York and Dallas, diners at Opaque are led into the restaurant and served — in total darkness — by blind/visually-impaired waiters. The idea here is to compel you, without your usual sense of sight, to better appreciate your three-course meal's other sensory attributes, including smell, taste, texture and even sound.
Menus here are flavorfully infused with a variety of aromatic, tongue-tingling ingredients. Not recommended for nyctophobics.
Contact: 310-546-7619, www.darkdining.com.
Image: Forbes Island
2. Forbes Island
Forbes Island is situated on a floating island in San Francisco's Sea Lion Harbor, complete with a fine-dining restaurant and an adjoining 45-foot-tall lighthouse. Built in 1975 by eccentric millionaire Forbes Thor Kiddoo as a private home, the restaurant features underwater dining rooms and an undersea bar as well.
Contact: 415-951-4900, www.forbesisland.com.
3. Heart Attack Grill
Dedicated to outright gluttony, the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas fries up mega-burgers and other diner staples, served by sexy waitresses in nurse outfits. Overeaters can feast on double, triple and quadruple Bypass Burgers (containing up to two pounds of meat, worth 8,000 calories).
Rounding out the menu are all-you-can-eat Flatliner Fries, cooked in lard, and shakes made with butterfat. The greasy grill's motto: "Fighting anorexia since 2005." Weigh more than 350 pounds? Hallelujah! Your eats here are free.
Contact: 702-722-2180, www.heartattackgrill.com.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
4. The Airplane Restaurant
If you're fed up with airline food, don't give up without trying lunch or dinner at The Airplane Restaurant, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. You'll get a real high dining on the likes of Reuben von Crashed sandwiches or Flying Chicken Florentine, served onboard a grounded but fully intact 1953 Boeing KC-97 military tanker.
Cleverly redesigned to seat 275 patrons, the old Boeing is decorated with museum-grade displays of aviation-related memorabilia that will keep you gawking for hours.
Contact: 719-570-7657, www.solosrestaurant.com.
5. The Cave
Neanderthals did it, and if you're batty enough, you too can dine in a cave. That would be The Cave in Richland, Missouri. No fiberglass here, this is a genuine cavern with waterfalls and fishponds overlooking the scenic Gasconade River in south central Missouri.
This subterranean grotto promises to satisfy hearty Midwest appetites with a steakhouse menu accented with stuffed mushrooms, fried pickles and breaded mac 'n' cheese.
Contact: 573-765-4554, thecaverestaurantandresort.com.
6. Safe House
Providing you know the password, you can slip into the Safe House. Situated in a nondescript alley and disguised as International Exports, Ltd., this popular Milwaukee restaurant has long served as the secret refuge of hungry spies — and those who just get a kick out of the wall-to-wall spy memorabilia collected by founder David J. Baldwin.
In-character Cold War waiters serve up an essentially American menu, thematically spiced with "Spycialties" such as the Soviet Defector pork ribs and Sean Connery flame-broiled steak.
Contact: 414-271-2007, www.safehouse.com.
Image: Facebook
7. Lucky Cheng's
Imitators have tried, but none have topped New York City's Lucky Cheng's when it comes to the drag-dining scene. This East Village cabaret pioneered the concept of dinner served by glamorous drag queens.
Three-course Asian-American meals are accompanied by bawdy dance performances, best appreciated by liberal-minded patrons. Lucky Cheng's currently offers dinner shows on Friday and Saturday nights only at 93 Ludlow Street.
Contact: 212-995-5500, www.luckychengsnewyork.com.
8. Ninja New York
Forget Ninja Turtles. Ninja New York presents a reasonably authentic-looking rendition of a Japanese mountain village inhabited exclusively by ninja warriors. It affords a trippy dining experience you won't have to leave lower Manhattan to enjoy.
You'll be guided across stone bridges and around fake boulders to your table where screaming costume-clad ninja waiters swoop in to serve you sumptuous Japanese favorites including sushi, sashimi and a specialty dish, Katana — a pricey black Angus teriyaki steak.
Contact: 212-274-8500, www.ninjanewyork.com.
