My 9/19/08 uWink Hollywood visit

from the IH message board:

>>--the 3D motion-activated game outside of the restaurant is really cool and often times created a mini crowd of people watching....great attention-getter

--this location is a lot bigger, more roomy than the Woodland Hills location...very different with a lot more potential. Everything from the music, the lighting, the look, the feel, the furniture, the colors was a massive upgrade to the Woodland Hills one....and I thought the 1st one looked good! This new one makes Woodland hills look like dog shit in comparison

--no longer an ID RFID card....just swipe your driver's license or credit card to get started...pretty neat...built into the machines too (which also got upgrades in outward appearance)....the computer's interface has had major more professional and fun and more user-friendly improvements...and comes in around I believe it was 6 different languages to choose from! Great for international visitors (and potential franchises)

--the place was about half full at 8:30pm and maybe 25% full when we left around 10pm....which seemed decent compared to the other restaurants in the building

--two minor (literally, lol) celebrities were eating there with their moms.... 15 year old Nathan Kress from the show iCarly on Nickelodeon and some other girl who's name I forget....Lexi something?

--1st hour is free for games and entertainment....after that you have to order more stuff to get free credits or buy more credits

--"grouping" worked perfectly this time...all of our food came out together even though they were ordered one at a time

--I ordered a chocolate cake for dessert then 30 seconds later I ordered a second one for a different member of our party....within seconds somebody came out to verify that I wanted two chocolate cakes...I found that interesting because that was exactly my suggestion for the problem uNintendo pointed out!....apparently the double order sent a red flag to the kitchen which triggered a human to verify the order before making it

--this new location has booths, round tables, and even big round tables...very accomodative unlike Woodland Hills to parties of 5 or 6 getting a total of 3 screens at a round table...this place was a far more comfortable setting for parties of any size!

--the iBar was cool as a first step....nothing Earth-shattering (yet) but 1000 times cooler than just the usual boring bar top....lots of plans I was told for the future with it including games

--cool restaurant-wide games....and games for the entire table

--Mountain View location is scheduled to soft open August 11 I was told by one of the managers...it will be a little smaller than the Hollywood location but with a similar layout