US3091815A - Restaurants - Google Patents

Description

June 4, 1963 w. KRAWIEC 3,091,815

RESTAURANTS IN VEN TOR. WALTER (PAW/EC A TTOENEKS June 4, 1963 Filed Sept. 1, 1960 w. KRAWIEC 3,091,815

RESTAURANTS 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. WALTFR RAW/E6 United States Patent Office 3,591,815 Patented June 4, 1 963 3,091,815 RESTAURANTS Walter Krawiec, New York, N.Y. (33-25 58th St., Woodside, Queens, N.Y.) Filed Sept. 1, 1960, Se No. 53,556 1 Claim. (Cl. 201) This invention relates generally to the restaurant art; more specifically it presents a novel dining room or restaurant; and in detail it is concerned with a restaurant having a movable dining area.

While restaurants, or more specifically, eating counters with movable sections are known, their construction is ineflicient and serve little useful purpose. For example, one form of such a device consists of a stationary eating counter with food continuously moving by on a rotating shelf. One dining at this counter would merely remove the desired food from a portion of the shelf as it moves by. It will be obvious that this arrangement is impractical. The food if not promptly removed from a shelf will grow cold or stale. Furthermore, there is little record of the exact quantity of food consumed by each individual, thus resulting in possible losses. Furthermore, the above structure is only effective at relatively small lunch type counters.

As will appear from the detailed description below, this unit is fashioned as to be particularly eflicient for use in both small and large dining and restaurant constructions.

It is a cardinal object of this invention, therefore, to provide a novel and more efiicient dining room construction.

Another primary object hereto is to set forth a kitchen arrangement that will operate at maximum eifectiveness even when serving a relatively large dining area.

It is another object and accomplishment of the instant invention to efiiciently utilize the largest possible area of a dining room.

Still another object is to provide a dining room which will provide a maximum amount of comfort and permit a maximum amount of service to the users thereof.

A further object of the instant device is to eliminate reservation problems in the dining room .and to prevent the loss of effective table usage time.

A further purpose of this device is to minimize the distance between the kitchen and each table, thereby permitting the waiters to operate at maximum efliciency and synchronization.

An ancillary object of the instant invention is to provide a dining room that may be more easily supervised, and the tempo of which can be regulated and controlled to most efliciently accommodate the service of customers in the dining room.

The invention further seeks to provide a dining area that will necessarily result in improved and quicker service to all tables and further will eliminate customer insistence as to most favored tables.

The above and other objects are accomplished primarily by providing a circular dining room fioor which can be slowly rotated about a stationary kitchen.

This invention consists in detail of the novel features of construction and arrangement of parts which will appear in the following specification and recited in the appended claims, reference being had to the accompanying drawings in which the same reference numerals indicate the same parts throughout the various figures, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a top plan diagrammatic view of the instant invention.

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the dining room removed from the remainder of the building, with the drive mechanisms illustrated in phantom.

FIG. 3 is a side elevational view of a portion of the instant invention taken substantially along line 33 of FIG. 2.

Referring to the drawings which illustrate what may be for some purposes a preferred embodiment of the invention, there is illustrated generally, a restaurant 10.

It will be noted that the details of the reception room 11, hat check room 12, orchestra room 13, cocktail or quick service area 14, are not described in detail since their form may be of standard construction and forms no part of the present invention. Suflicient to say, however, that the usual miscellaneous areas of every dining room or restaurant are provided in the usual manner.

The main dining room, according to this invention, will consist of a preferably circular floor 15. It will be noted that the circular center portion 16 of the floor 15 is separated to accommodate the kitchen as will more fully be explained hereinafter.

The dining room portion of the floor 15 is adapted and arranged to be slowly rotated in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction about the center stationary kitchen portion 16.

In the drawings there is illustrated one possible apparatus for the purpose of rotating the relatively large dining room floor. There is therein shown a plurality of standard motors 17 positioned under the periphery of the dining room floor 15. Attached to the rotating shafts 18 of each of the motors 17 there is a steel or pulley 19 adapted to contact a rail or support 20 integrally fastened to the dining room floor 15. The motors may be electrically connected to a common circuit to insure that they will all rotate at a constant speed. It will be seen then that the motors 17 will function to rotate at an even, but relatively slow, rate, the main dining floor 15.

Additional idler rollers 23 may be suitably positioned along the track or along a second track 29a to support the main weight of the dining room floor 15.

It should be realized, however, that the above described dining room rotating mechanism is merely shown for exemplary purposes and it will be possible to substitute any rotation means therefor.

As illustrated, suitable tables 21 with chairs are conveniently situated completely around the dining room floor 15. It should be noted that the tables 21 may be more conveniently and possibly closely spaced than is conventional, in that long walking paths for the waiters will not be required, as will be pointed out in more detail hereinafter.

The primary objects of this invention therefore are accomplished by the expedient of the rotatable dining room floor 15. The customers all enter the dining room area at one location 22. They are seated at the empty 25ice and water facilities 26service bar 27-registration room 28-bread and butter 29pantry (appetizers, 30soup and coffee 31main course and vegetables 32-cofiee bar salads, cold plates, etc.)

33desserts 34-bar 35-set up station It will be observed that this arrangement not only or otherwise see the cleaning or table setting operation between areas 24 and 22 a hanging partition, screen, or the like 48 may be suspended in juxtaposition area 22 with its lowest point just above the top of the tables 21.

Additionally, a portion of the kitchen area and/ or additional service facilities such as dishwashing, etc., can be located above or below the main portion of the kitchen and can even be moved mechanically by conveyors or elevators.

It may be preferable in certain instances to separate the dining room from the center kitchen 16. Of course, this may be done in any manner.

It will be seen that this invention envisages a new type of service wherein each Waiter specializes in serving a particular food from a particular portion of the kitchen. For example, one or more waiters would concentrate on serving nothing but cocktails from the cocktail portion of the kitchen. This will obviously improve service to the customer and simplify the waiters job.

As an example of the operation of this invention, one form of service is set forth below:

A. The host or hostess conducts the customer to his table at the entrance point 22.

B. The captain greets the customer, provides the menu and records the cocktail order.

C. Water is placed on the table.

D. The cocktail waiter provides a table check and delivers the drinks to the table from the service bar 26.

E. The food captain records the food order and delivers the order to the registration room 27.

F. The registration room records the order, issues instructions for the preparation of the food and then writes the check.

G. Bread and butter, appetizers and the salads are delivered from kitchen areas 28 and 29.

H. The soup, main course, cofiee, dessert, and'after dinner cocktail are each served as the table passes the portions of the kitchen 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34.

I. The final check is then presented by a cashier waiter.

J. The table is cleared for the next group of customers.

One of the prime advantages of this arrangement is that even during peak and rush hours the service will always he at the most efficient tempo. There will be no slowdown of service even when the room is filled to capacity. In most conventional restaurants there will be a bottleneck and even a slowdown of service during the peak .dinner hours. As described above, this can never occur in a dining room constructed in the instant invention.

It is, of course, to be emphasized that the objects of the invention previously set forth to wit, more and better service, economy, reduced overhead, etc., are all accomplished by this arrangement. The continuous and flawless service during the peak dining hours has never heretofore been accomplished.

It will be seen that the essence of this invention is the rotating dining area with stationery tables. Other details were mentioned herein merely for illustrative purposes and not to in any way limit the scope of this invention.

While there are above disclosed but a limited number of embodiments of the structure and product of the invention herein presented, it is possible to produce still other embodiments without departing from the inventive concept herein disclosed, and it is desired therefore that only such limitations be opposed on the appended claim as are stated therein, or required by the prior art.

Having thus described my invention and illustrated its use, what I claim as new and desire to secureby Letters Patent is: g

A food service structure comprising, an outer horizontal stationery service area having a relatively large substantially circular center cutout, a circular dining turntable fitting rotatably within said center cutout, said turntable having tables and chairs thereon and comprising, a dining area, means to rotate said center turntable at a relatively even rate of rotation, the upper horizontal surface of said turntable being in substantially the same plane as the upper surface of said outer horizontal service area, and means to permit the entrance to said turntable at one point about the periphery thereof, and means to permit the exit from said turntable at one point about the periphery thereof, said exit and said entrance points being in juxtaposition, said turntable having a substan- 'tially circular center opening and a stationary kitchen within said center opening, said kitchen being divided into a plurality of individual service sections, each of said plurality of individual service sections to serve one portion of a meal, the rotation of said turntable being in timed relationship, whereby the tables thereon will be moved past a section of said kitchen when the food from that section is to be served.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS

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