Get this: in the post-yuppie designer ghettoes of Manhattan, apartments are being built without any kitchens in them. Even given that New Yorkers frequent restaurants more than anybody else, the hardcore can't-cook-won't-cook brigade now has a cast-iron excuse for eating out - all of the time.
Closer to home, the days of "prawn cocktail, steak and chips and a bottle of Blue Nun" as representative of culinary adventure have long since gone and it is estimated that the amount spent on dining out over the last decade in Ireland has risen from 8 pence to 20 pence for every pound spent on food. The number of restaurants in the Dublin area alone has doubled in the last four years. To satisfy this new, contintental-style demand, a product called "eatertainment" was offered up to the masses. The idea behind these speciality-theme restaurants was to offer an "environment" that was a few steps up from fast-food outlets and more exciting than the traditional sit-down and mind-your-manners restaurants.
From Planet Hollywood to the Hard Rock Cafe and from The Fashion Cafe to the House of Blues, "eatertainment" was the buzz word in the food business, as these flashy, celebrity-endorsed palaces of food, drink and logo-bearing merchandising cloned themselves from city to city.
With 94 outlets around the world, Planet Hollywood is the biggest of the theme-food pack. Launched in New York in 1991 by film producer Robert Earl (now a billionaire), the operation was fronted by a number of bigname film stars including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. The celebrities operate as roving ambassadors for the restaurant by displaying themselves for the cameras and humbly shaking the hands of the waiting staff at the opening of every new Planet Hollywood store (everyone calls them "stores" even though they're restaurants).
The selling point is "environment", meaning that each and every store is decorated with all manner of film memorabilia, classic films and trailers for new films are shown on giant video screens throughout the restaurant and movie legends loom in cardboard cutout poses before classic scenes from classic films. A sort of virtual cinema with food.
The in-store shops sell a massive range of film-related products including T-shirts, baseball caps, jackets (denim or leather), sunglasses, watches, mugs, towels and posters. According to the assistant vice-president of Planet Hollywood operations, Ms Amy Boulnois, sales of merchandise generate twice the revenue of the food and beverage side of the business - put simply that's twice as many T-shirts as burgers.
Ironically, such a statistic is contributing to a downturn in the fortunes of the global Planet Hollywood empire. The company has recently announced a £24 million loss and has shut ventures in Jakarta and Aspen.
This, coupled with the news that London's Fashion Cafe (a similar theme restaurant but substituting modelling for cinema) went into receivership a few weeks ago after a year in operation.
Fronted and promoted by Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Elle MacPherson, the Fashion Cafe also closed branches in New Orleans and Barcelona earlier this year. Part of the reason for this is the sheer proliferation of theme restaurants - the numbers have doubled in the last five years, far outstripping demand. The other reason is blindingly obvious: it is the food. Theme restaurants never purported to serve haute cuisine - they are basically just jazzed up burger joints with cliched menus. With all the fuss and nonsense of having the waxwork of Schwarzenegger's Terminator, a machine gun wielded by Sylvester Stallone and Danny De Vito's high-school yearbook, the food often became an add-on to the cinematic gimmicks. Customers simply are not returning to theme-restaurants and that is why they are in decline warns Mr Richard Harden, an industry insider and co-author of Harden's Lon- don's Restaurants.
"It is great for tourists, or for those who want a day out with the kids," says Mr Harden, "but it is a one-off. A case of been there, done that. There is no reason why the public should come back."
The sheer ubiquity of Planet Hollywood now seems to be working against it. In the industry, the idea of a certain restaurant in almost every city in the Western world is known as the "Howard Johnson phenomenon": tourists, especially Americans, who found themselves in unfamiliar cities would always always head for the recognisable that offered reliability and reassurance.
This is the same thinking at work behind the proud McDonald's boast that its coffee tastes the same everywhere around the world. This does not wash with the newer generation of tourists and frequent eater-outers. Familiarity has bred contempt and recent reports from the US National Restaurant Association (a trade organisation that embraces everything from burger joints to expense-account only eateries) predict that people do not want to eat the same thing in Prague, Barcelona and Paris as they do in their own home-town.
Vernacular cuisine is on the rise, food that accurately reflects the local area and provides an alternative to the cheeseburger. However, Mr Stewart Purcell, the sales manger of Planet Hollywood in Dublin says things couldn't be going better for the St Stephen's Green branch. "We do find that we are getting a lot of repeat custom, especially from families who find the restaurant to be a perfect place for a day out or a birthday. We are one of the busiest restaurants in Dublin and are also attracting a very large amount of corporate business," he says.
Mr Purcell adds that there may well be a second Planet Hollywood store in Ireland in the near future. Despite all the talk of "profits shortfall" circulating about theme-restaurants, the very latest trend in the business is the "supertheme" or the "event" restaurant.
The first real example of this newer than new breed is "Mars 2112" currently doing roaring business on Broadway in New York.
A considerable step up from munching a burger below a picture of Bruce Willis, customers entering the restaurant climb on board a "space shuttle" that transports them through a "meteor shower" to a bar where they can drink red Martian beer and watch television sets which report on Martian news and weather. Significantly, the food in the restaurant is all haute cuisine and the interplanetary experience doesn't come cheap. Check out the Martian vibe for yourself when Mars 2112 opens a branch in London next year and, according to industry gossip, in Dublin the year after.
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