Roaming Bar Stools

Revolving restaurants are becoming ten-a-penny these days. I think the first one was in Winnipeg, Canada, but now they're springing up all over the place. Mumbai, Kurachi, Beijing - at this rate it won't be long before teenagers at every fast food joint in town are commanded to crawl underneath the building, drill through the foundations, and fill the basement with ball bearings. Then, as they emerge sweating and blinking back up into the light, they'll be told to split up, grab a corner of the building each, and push. Clockwise.

But what I'm imagining is a restaurant/bar, preferably with glass walls, and preferably situated quite high up in some beautiful city somewhere. That's the ideal, anyway. But you could do this in even the most dingy, concrete-based dive, if ever their budget would stretch to it.

Let's imagine you and a couple of your friends stumble into this place by accident, unsure of what to expect, but looking for a bite to eat, a few drinks, and a fun night out. You've arrived slightly early - but, being the accommodating people they are, they politely ask you to wait for a couple of minutes "while things warm up". You're already intruiged by the place, so you do. And as you wait, you look around. You can't see much from where you're standing, but already you can't put your finger on what this establishment is trying to be - there seems to be a themed Irish bar right in front of you, but you can also glimpse bits of what looks like Indian art on the walls elsewhere, and, if you really crane your neck, you could swear you can see the edges of a "Bud Light" neon sign. Eventually the barely audible-humming sound that you have been hearing since you arrived subsides, and now you and your friends are ushered into the seats that were right in front of you.

Then it's Guiness all round. As you sink your pint of the black stuff, it takes you a few minutes to notice that your seats are actually moving. Very slowly, they're creeping around the establishment, sliding slowly from bar to bar. You finish your pint, and take a quick trip to the toilet. When you next rejoin your group, they're drinking Indian beer and snacking on samosas. All good fun, and very satisying for your snack cravings. You get engrossed in conversation with someone, and for a moment you're bemused when you pick up a snack and it's an enchilada - slowly you realise that, in this establishment, the tables are fixed and the patrons move from bar to bar. Like a very slow rollercoaster, your seat (and your group of friends) has been travelling round the room, up and down stairs, from themed buffet to themed buffet, taste-travelling their way around the world in the space of a couple of hours.

Again, I haven't explained this very well. Still, it would make a nice change from the room spinning round around me as I lie helpless in my bed wishing I'd scarfed down a few more snacks before I started my night out...