Waste not, want not: Poop-themed restaurants are on trend

Waste not, want not: Poop-themed restaurants are on trend

TORONTO — At this restaurant in Java, Indonesia, the best seat in the house is made of porcelain.

Jamban Café in Semarang is making headlines for being a toilet-themed eatery, complete with ‘porcelain thrones’ doubling as chairs and bedpans masked as food platters. Since its opening in April, Jamban – which means toilet in Indonesian – has attracted countless tourists and locals in search of a unique and kitschy dining experience.

But according to owner Budi Laksono, Jamban is meant to do more than elicit shock, giggles and disgust. He says the café “serves as a reminder that many people in Indonesia still do not have toilets,” reports Mashable. Hopefully, he says, his café will shine a spotlight on third-world living conditions that many in his country face every day.

Jamban currently only accepts small group bookings. But Canadians who are unable to travel halfway around the world won’t have to go very far to have their own gross-out dining experience; Toronto is set to welcome its very own poop-themed eatery this August.

Upon opening, Lien Nguyen’s Poop Café Dessert Bar will serve traditional Asian desserts in “fun” fecal shapes, reports Mashable. Nguyen says she first got the idea after visiting a toilet-themed restaurant in Taiwan. Similar restaurants have also opened in Russia, China and Japan.

Like Jamban Café, Poop Café Dessert Bar will feature fake toilets as seats and urinal-shaped dishes. But unlike the Indonesian eatery, Nguyen’s café doesn’t have an underlying socio-economic message for its patrons; Nguyen simply wants to “make poop cute,” she told the Toronto Star.

The verdict’s still out on whether that’s actually possible, though.

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