The latest revolution in the restaurant business isn’t taking place in Paris or London or even Berlin for that matter. It’s happening in an odd location — a non-descript industrial building on the outskirts of Nuremberg in Bavaria. Michael Mack, who got his start operating a profitable iron foundry in the city, has reinvented the way guests are served food and drinks and infused the culinary world with a bit of the Jetsons.

Mack, a stranger to the business of dining, has opened the world’s first restaurant to feature fully automated ordering and table service. At the bistro’s Baggers, the waiter of old has been shown the door. And in a country known for being a service wasteland, it’s uncertain he’ll actually be missed. Instead of the classic, apron and tie-wearing waiter, each table has been connected by metal rails to the kitchen. Dishes like “organic beef in buttermilk” and “sausage en croute” glide along the rails to customers, propelled by gravity.

For the magic to work at all, Mack had to install the kitchen directly beneath the roof of the multistory restaurant. Customers order their meals using a touch-screen system that is placed at each table, and the entire restaurant is networked via a computer system. Customers’ orders are registered upstairs in the kitchen and a computer in the cellar keeps track of supply stocks. The system also calculates the likely delivery times for drinks and meals at every table and keeps customers informed.

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