Eat food off of a conveyor belt

“A conveyor belt sushi place called Sakatanoya recently opened in the Loop in St. Louis, and we went there with some friends on Sunday for lunch. We loved it! I like trying a lot of different dishes when I eat, so this was perfect for variety. Also, food was available on the conveyor belt as soon as we sat down, so we were eating almost immediately. We could also order non-sushi dishes from a tablet at the table, and they would appear a few minutes later on a robot moving above the conveyor belt, stopping at our seat. When you’re done with a plate, you feed it into a little machine at the table that adds it to your bill. There’s a toy factor to it that makes it fun, but also really efficient.”

“The salmon and tuna were fresh and delicious. They tasted better than all the sushi I had before. The scallop soft roe had a strong ocean flavor and a strange texture. I still finished it, even though it wasn’t my favorite. The fried chicken was surprisingly good with its crispy skin and juicy meat. [...] A conveyor belt carried plates of sushi around to every table. You could simply grab whatever you liked. The sushi belt moved at a comfortable speed, giving you time to observe each plate before deciding which one to grab.”

“This was actually my first time at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Japan, or anywhere for that matter. In Japanese these restaurants are called “kaizen sushi” and they’re common in cities all across the country. The basic idea of kaizen sushi is that you take a seat and plates with various kinds of sushi pass by you on a conveyor belt. You take the plates you want but you can also special order sushi from a tablet computer that’s at your seat. When you’re done the restaurant staff will add up all the plates you took (different plates cost different amounts of money and are distinguished by their color) and then charge you accordingly. Since hardly anyone else was in the restaurant I didn’t get to experience the vibe of kaizen sushi during peak hours but on the plus side I didn’t have to worry about anybody snagging a good plate that was coming my way.”