How eateries are filling seats and keeping customers safe.
While many businesses have been practically devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant industry, with its fundamental need to put people in seats, has been hit especially hard.
A number of them, though, have found an inventive way to make their establishments more inviting, while also helping their customers maintain social distancing.
How? By employing the alluring services of sex dolls.
A date to remember
Paula Starr Melehes, the owner of the restaurant Open Hearth in Taylors, South Carolina, is a perfect example of this clever resourcefulness.
Wanting to give her steak and seafood joint a much-needed sense of being busy and bustling, and thus creating a warm and inviting atmosphere, she paid $140 dollars for 10 inflatable sex dolls to occupy some of her seats.
The result has been overwhelmingly positive.
Paula Starr Melehes, the owner of the restaurant Open Hearth in Taylors, South Carolina, is a perfect example of this clever resourcefulness.
Wanting to give her steak and seafood joint a much-needed sense of being busy and bustling, and thus creating a warm and inviting atmosphere, she paid $140 dollars for 10 inflatable sex dolls to occupy some of her seats.
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The result has been overwhelmingly positive.
So much so that, Rob McCarter, one of Open Hearth’s more enthusiastic customers, told WTHR “I might even kiss one of those dolls before the night’s over.”
Warm and inviting wasn’t the only motivation for Melehes’s purchase of those plastic companions.
As she put it in the same article, “It’s a concept that is not frightening to people, and it gives them something light to think about, instead of virus and exes everywhere.”
Table for two?
Though many sex and sex-tech-related companies have seen a major boost in sales, unexpectedly one of them has been slammed almost as hard as the restaurant industry.
I figured I’d be moving product like never before. But what I didn’t count on was 30% unemployment in San Diego County alone. You get that kind of economic buzzkill, you’re likely to turn to less expensive methods for sexual gratification.
That was Matt McMullen, speaking to the San Diego Reader in May about how RealDoll’s sales surprisingly haven’t joined in the adult products pandemic boom.
McMullen’s name should be familiar to Future pf Sex readers, we’ve covered him and his groundbreaking sex doll company many times before.
But like Melehes, McMullen didn’t see a problem but rather a potential way to get the word out about his products while lending a much-needed hand to his local restaurants at the same time.
But as they say, every crisis is an opportunity. I read how some restaurants were placing giant stuffed animals or even mannequins in seats to create the appealing illusion of fullness while still keeping things safe. And my girls are a hell of a lot better looking than stuffed animals and mannequins.
San Diego establishment Born & Raised took McMullen up on his offer, and now their customers have the opportunity to dine with one of RealDoll’s state-of-the-art products.
Better yet, McMullen points out that customers can also take their artificial dinner date’s home with them. If they’re willing to pick up more than just the tab, of course,
And because some of them have AI features, they can even make conversation with solo diners who are eager to get out of the house but still feel skittish about dating. Who knows — if the evening goes well, you can even take her home! For six grand or so.
Creative and lighthearted solutions to serious problems
A similar move, on the other hand, didn’t work out so well for FC Seoul.
The South Korean soccer team got slapped with a $82,000 fine earlier this year and might even lose the right to play in a stadium after filling it with love doll spectators.
Yet McMullen and these eateries share a special something in common with that South Korean soccer team.
Melehes of Open Hearth said it, McMullen of RealDoll expressed it, and a representative for FC Seoul put it extremely well: in a world full of anxiety about the present as well as fear for the future we all need to take a moment and lift ourselves up with something playfully silly, outrageously ridiculous, and just plain fun.
Like having the opportunity to sit and enjoy a nice meal with a sex doll.
Image source: Bruno /Germany
