The Hundred Thousand Gallon Restaurant

Once I was eating in a crappy little undifferentiated restaurant, and a patron at the next table stood up too quickly, knocking into a passing waitress who was carrying a tray full of root beer, which ended up all over one of my friends. Since it wasn't me that got soaked, I spent the evening marveling at the sense of adventure: amusing experience, everything on the house, free T-shirts.

Behold the logical next step: the Hundred Thousand Gallon Restaurant. It is fit only for New York, Tokyo, or some other intense, liberal, 24-hour, novelty-craving city.

You arrive at the front gate, where you are greeted by a large and stern sign warning you of what you are getting into. You sign waivers; a big production is made of this. You step into a cavernously tall interior, and as you sit down, you see that the apparent ceiling is actually the bottom of a cistern so large as to be scarcely believable. The food is pretty good, and you pay a lot for it. It's a sceney place. The decor is arty. It's somewhere that pampered lawyers and visiting rock stars like to go. All the stemware is plastic, and the dishes are very sturdy.

If you are not lucky, that will be the extent of your evening at the Hundred Thousand Gallon Restaurant. You will take a mint from the front desk as you leave, and stroll out into the night, musing on what might have been.

But let us imagine that you are lucky: lucky enough to dine on one of the five nights each year, selected at random by a computer and not known to a single living soul in advance, on which the Great Deluge occurs. You are, say, putting the last bite of your asparagus risotto appetizer in your mouth, when a genuinely disconcerting sound is heard. Hundreds of steel valves, you see, have simultaneously snapped open above you. Those valves looked sturdy and reassuring when they were closed; now they are distinctly menacing, in the way that a blown submarine hatch is menacing. The first FWAP of water hits your table with an astonishing shock. The table buckles with the impact. Your dishes fly away. Water is descending on you at an indescribable rate.

Already the employee at the host station, heart leaping, weeks of training surging forth, has jumped to the front gate and locked it. No one else will get in. The people outside are not among those anointed by fate.

The sound is deafening. The restaurant is already clearly ruined. Artwork has been torn from the walls, light fixtures have shorted out, curtains have torn, the upholstery on the chairs is waterlogged, the piano is no longer in one piece. Were it not for the gaping drains in the floor, everyone would be fighting to keep their heads above water.

Almost as quickly as it began, the flood is over. Several people are sobbing, but mostly the reaction is stunned silence and sputtering. All the waitstaff are trained paramedics; they rush to the aid of any injured customers. The busfolk and water servers quickly collect the ruins of furniture, dishes, and food, shoving the rubble to the sides of the room.

Then the party begins.

All the food is free, and holy shit, it's some of the best food you've ever tasted. Top chefs from around town, under special contract, have been summoned to the kitchen, which has been spared. A DJ shows up with several assistants, who quickly rig an impressive sound and light system. Hundred-year-old wine is brought up from the cellars. Confetti and bubbles stream through the air. It is millenial gaiety; it is madness. Opera stars show up at the gate and vainly beg admittance.

The party is over at sunrise. Before leaving, you are handed a fragment of furniture and a miniature Noah's Ark, cast in solid gold, inscribed with your name and "...has survived the Great Deluge of MM-DD-YY".

The Hundred Thousand Gallon Restaurant closes for a week. Famous decorators remodel it. The menu changes. The tank is refilled. The owners spend several nervous days on the phone with their insurance company, talking about why a special risk is called a special risk.

The gate opens again. The suspense begins to build anew.