Sorry, I'll try to get the formatting better for this one.
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I've always thought that there might be something to combining a restaurant
with gaming. This could also help with the funding if you could find an
adventuresome entrepreneur (sp?). For it to work properly/ideally, the best
bet is to find someone planning on building a new restaurant. It would be
much easier to install the needed hardware from ground up. But also, the 
actual architecture of the building may need some tweaking, for optimum affect.
For example:

Some large restaurants have large rooms for private gorging. Often these
rooms don't have any specific theme - just the theme of the restaurant. But some
do have different themes for different rooms. That's the ticket.

1. The D&D, Mudders hall. Dark, low beams, large clunky tables and chairs.
   Could even have the waiters/barmaids dress accordingly. Could even have special
   menu items to conform to the setting - a large roast beef with veggies on a
   platter, a hunk of bread, bring your own knife.

2. The Quake room. Well, you think what that might look and feel like.

3. Mech Warrior or whatever.

Now, realistically you wouldn't or couldn't have a particular theme for
every gaming situation out there. But a style could serve multiple gaming
scenarios. Also, the different theme rooms could just as well serve regular diners.
Might even be bigplus. Something different.

But there are some concerns that up the overhead involved.

You'd probably want to plan for a different entrance for these groups.
There will probably will be a need for extra prep work for a group. Maybe 
legal stuff to sign off, communicating rules, etc. Best to separate this activity.

Extra staff my be needed for keeping an eye on the groups. This may call
for both, an eye on the physical room (alcohol to minors, drugs, ritual sacrifices...)
- but might also involve some kind of net watch. In fact, there may be enough need,
that an ISP alliance might be a good thing. Heck, the GameMaster/ISP could get some spin
off publicity and/or work. Set up webpages for a tribe, or teach them how.

These areas, since they're wired, could also be a great place to hold
seminars and courses.

Of course, this can be scaled down and even retrofitted into an existing
situation. But I don't think you can attain the needed 'threshold of impact' that's
needed to make something different actually work, or at least fail with a bigger splash ;-).
But half-way efforts would seem 'Doomed'.

But then, folks thinking of building a restaurant know there taking on one
the riskiest business ventures out there. Well, until the Net and e-commerce came along.


Mike D.