A Restaurant of Gigantic Proportions (Restaurants USA, September 2002)

September 2002 issue

A Restaurant of Gigantic Proportions

Restaurants USA magazine's final issue was published in September 2002 but these archived articles remain available for our readers' convenience.

Restaurants USA, September 2002

The Royal Dragon in Bangkok, Thailand, can serve 5,000 customers at one time.
By Sarah Smith Hamaker

September 18, 2002 If only the 16 Americans of the new CBS reality show “Survivor Thailand”—who were stranded on an island off Thailand having to forage for food—could have visited the Royal Dragon restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, they would not have been so hungry. The world’s largest restaurant, as recorded in the 1992 Guinness Book of Records, serves more than 1,000 Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Western-style dishes. The 8.35-acre restaurant, which opened in 1991, employs 1,000 workers and has 5,000 seats. The kitchen staff is capable of turning out 3,000 dishes per hour. Because of the massive floor space, servers deliver food on roller skates; there is even a cable that permits servers to “fly” from one end of the restaurant to the other. In addition, guests are entertained each evening with Thai and Chinese dancers. National Restaurant Association Board member Kenneth Hill recently visited the Royal Dragon while on a trip to Thailand and Cambodia. “It is unlike anything I have seen in the United States,” he says. “Many of the servers are so proficient that they roller skate backwards when delivering food. . . .It is indeed a remarkable place to see.”

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Sarah Smith Hamaker is managing editor of Restaurants USA Online.