America's Weirdest Restaurants

By Colleen Kane, CNBC.com

Unusual Dining Experiences

Novelty and theme restaurants seem to be more common outside the U.S., especially in Asia, but we've uncovered 20 unusual dining experiences right here in the USA, serving cuisines from the aggressively unhealthy to whimsical works of art. Some meals come with shows and some with surprises; some of the restaurants transport diners to another time, and one to another planet.

It's a rare diner who will want to experience all of these restaurants, but click on ahead to see how many appeal and how many appall.

See the full slideshow: 20 Weirdest Restaurants in America

B.E.D.
Location: Miami, Florida
Price: entrées $20 - 60, cover charge applies

Instead of breakfast in bed, how about dinner? B.E.D. stands for beverage, entertainment, dining, and that's exactly what you get…in bed!

Executive chef Vitor Casassola's menu includes cold appetizers like camembert tempura and tomatillo guacamole and entrees like surf & turf and Chilean seabass. And for dessert, an edible "pillow" called Cloud 9 Souffle.

The Cave
Location: Richland, Missouri
Price: $8 - 50

The Cave is the nation's only restaurant located in (you guessed it) a cave, serving American steakhouse/seafood and Italian fare. The space may not get much natural light, but it has waterfalls, fish ponds, and even a view of the Gasconade River.

The space began as a natural cave that served as a dance hall in the 1920s, situated three stories up on a limestone bluff at a campground (visitors can still rent the cabins). Back then it was not spacious enough for 225 to dine, as it is today; the rest was carved and blasted out over the course of four years.

Dinner in the Sky
Location: Worldwide
Price: Approx. $14,000 to rent, catering additional

The term "adventurous eater" normally refers to diners open-minded enough to try unusual foods, but in this case it means risking life and limb while eating dinner suspended more than 160 feet in the air.

Dinner in the Sky can accommodate 22 brave guests and 3 staffers for a meal in the air, and this one-of-a-kind experience can be held anywhere with enough space for the suspension crane. As far as the cuisine served in the sky, it can be anything-catering is not included in the cost of renting the restaurant.

Ninja NY
Location: New York, New York
Price: 3-course meal $38 - 48

Imagine ninjas serving your Japanese/French/American fusion cuisine in a private nook of a subterranean feudal Japanese castle. You enter via through a dark path beset with armed "ninjas."

Ninja's signature dish for two to share is the Katana, which is Angus steak teriyaki, fried risotto and Alaskan king crab with a tomato mango sauce topped with white sauce and cheese. Bottom line: Ninjas.

Casa Bonita
Location: Lakewood, Colorado
Price: All-you-can-eat dinner $13.79

For almost four decades, Casa Bonita has been one of Colorado's best-known restaurants, famous for its live show of Acapulco-style cliff divers, as well as strolling musicians, an arcade and a portrait studio. (If this sounds familiar, it's also known to South Park fans as Cartman's favorite restaurant , from the episode entitled "Casa Bonita.")

As for the food, it's Mexican with an all-you-can eat dinner option including their popular sopaipillas with honey. The restaurant is more than 52,000 feet, seating 1,000 diners.

Lucky Cheng's
Location: New York, New York
Price: 3-course meal $32

There are imitators, but Lucky Cheng's in New York's East Village pioneered the concept of dinner served by glamorous drag queens. The Asian-American three-course meals come with a cabaret show featuring a bawdy comedian hostess and Asian dance performances by other drag queens. After the last show, karaoke and dancing for all.

The Magic Castle
Location: Los Angeles, California
Price: entrées $19 - 48

Unless you're a magician or you roll with Gob Bluth , you probably won't get to see the Magic Castle restaurant, because it's only for members of the Academy for Magic Arts and their guests-kind of like a Friar's Club for magicians.

Housed in a castle-esque mansion dating to 1908, the restaurant serves entrees like strip steak and penne with rock shrimp paired with, naturally, magic shows. To gain entrance, diners say "open sesame" to a bookcase.

Heart Attack Grill
Location: Phoenix, Arizona and Dallas, Texas
Price: $12.73 for a Quadruple Bypass Burger

This hospital-themed burger joint may be gimmicky, but it's also serious as a heart attack. Although many U.S. eateries seem to fast-track overeaters to the ICU, the Heart Attack Grill has openly embraced it, offering aggressively unhealthy food while posturing as a send-up of fast food and obesity.

The menu is simple: Bypass Burgers made of 1-4 patties (containing 0 .5 - 2 lbs of meat), shakes made with butterfat, and an all-you-can-eat bar of Flatliner Fries, which are cooked in lard. Rounding out the menu is full-sugar Mexican Coke, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Lucky Strikes (or candy cigarettes for the little ones who are aiming high). A waitress in nurse gear wheels those who finish the 8000-calorie Quadruple Bypass burger out to their car in a wheelchair. Diners weighing in over 350 lbs. eat free . (The eatery's spokesman, 575-lb. Blair River, died in March of 2011 at age 29.)

Opaque
Location: Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, California
Price: $99 prix fix 3-course meal

It may be true that eating at one themed restaurant doesn't feel all that different from other ones. But now for something completely different: dining in the dark. It's a concept that started in Europe, in Berlin, Paris and Vienna, and Opaque offers the first stateside dining in the dark restaurants.
Guests order from a brief menu in a lit room before being led into pitch-black rooms by the team of blind and visually impaired servers. When the visual sense is shut off, the other senses are heightened, making for a newly extra-sensitive diner, and a distraction-free, immersive dining experience.


See the full slideshow: 20 Weirdest Restaurants in America


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