November 12, 1996: Apple lays out a wild plan to get into the restaurant business, saying it will open a chain of Apple Cafes with a touchscreen point-of-sale system. A bit like the company’s future retail stores — but without the computers and iPhones for sale — the Apple restaurants would open in cities around the world.
The first, Apple says, will be a 15,000-square-foot restaurant in Los Angeles, opening in late 1997.
Spoiler alert: None of this happens.
Apple Cafe: The geek’s Planet Hollywood
Apple partnered with London company Mega Bytes International BVI for its ill-fated restaurant endeavor. The idea was, essentially, to establish a chain of high-profile cybercafes. The concept held a lot of appeal at a time when only 23% of U.S. residents enjoyed the internet at home. (Today, that figure stands at more than 94%, according to Statista.)
At a time when theme restaurants like Planet Hollywood were going gangbusters, the concept of hooking up with a tech company — albeit an ailing one — to sell food seemed as serious as lots of dot-com era business plans.
The retro-styled Apple Cafes would boast seating for approximately 250 patrons. Customers would take advantage of internet connections, CD-ROM access and FaceTime-style videoconferencing between tables. Small shops within the restaurants would sell Apple merchandise and software. Alongside Los Angeles, Apple scouted potential locations in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Sydney.
Photo: Apple/Mega Bytes
Apple restaurants: Not a totally crazy idea
The Apple Cafe plan sounds like a wacky idea now. However, the idea of a computer company running a restaurant chain isn’t quite as obviously doomed as it might sound.
The Chuck E. Cheese chain, which originally built its name on combining food, animated entertainment, and an indoor video arcade, was started in 1977 by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell — aka the person who gave Apple co-founder Steve Jobs one of his first big breaks in the tech industry.
Apple’s plan to open theme restaurants doesn’t pan out
Ultimately, however, the Apple Cafe concept sputtered to a halt. The closest the Apple Cafe concept came to reality is the Caffè Macs outposts at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, and on a few other Apple campuses.
Like Apple’s attempts to launch a videogame console and a line of personal digital assistants — or to license Mac OS to other companies or build a Macintosh that was also a TV — the Apple Cafe is resigned to an era widely considered as the company’s “bad old days.”
The year after the Apple restaurants plan, Apple co-founder Jobs came back to Cupertino. He wisely streamlined all of Apple’s distracting side projects in favor of building products like the colorful original iMac.
On balance, we can’t say that’s the wrong idea. Even though we totally would have stopped by for a plate of tacOS and Jony Chive dip!
Photo: Apple/Mega Bytes
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
