For years sushi restaurants have used rotating conveyer betls going around and around to allow guests to grab plates they would like to eat. The proven popular because you can site down and start eating pretty much straight away.
For BBQ or yakiniku meaning chared meats in Japanese is very popular style of eating adopted from Korea where you order thin slices for meats and then you cook it to your liking at your in table bbq. It's fun and interactive way of enjoying a meal with friends or collegues. The difficult part about making a conveyer belt system seems to be the need for cooling. They had to developer a conveyer belt system that runs inside a refrigerated area to keep the raw meat from getting too warm if it sat on the belt for awhile.
Here is a video with some customers trying it out.
Note: the video is in Japanese but the people are just making comments about going to try out this new restaurant and then explaining the different types of meats they are grabbing.
The color and style of the plate determines the price.
When you are done eating, you throw your hands in the air, look at one of the wait staff, say loudly "sumimasen" (excuse me) and make a check mark X with your left and right index fingers which symbolizes you are done. They add up the total and issue you a slip to pay on the way out.
The restaurant is the Mie provence which is south of Nagoya in the city of Matsuzaka. Most people outside of Japan talk about Kobe beef but inside Japan Mie beef is the top class for the wonderful marbled meats that are the ultimate prize for meat lovers.
Isshobin (Miyamachi)
Address: Mie-ken, Matsuzaka-shi, Miyamachi 144-5
一升びん 宮町店
三重県松阪市宮町１４４−５
Website (Japanese): http://www.issyoubin.com/
I love Korean BBQ and love the idea of BBQ conveyor belt to select your own meats. In London we have it for sushi but not for Korean BBQ. This would be a success in London.
Yeah... this is first restaurant to ever do this here.
Looks like it could be a huge hit. Hope they can bring this technology to the states.