In a country filled with bizarre and incongruous theme restaurants, Japan’s Alcatraz ER stands out as an often sickening pastiche of horror movie mental institution themes and delicious dishes. 

From the very instant diners arrive in the blood-splattered lobby, Alcatraz ER sets-in to terrify and upset their guests. Waitresses dressed as nurses handcuff patrons and lead them to a short, meter-high cell where up to four diners cram in for their meal. From there, waitresses are summoned by raking the bars of their cell with an iron bar to order one of the restaurants plethora of horrifically themed drinks and dishes. The menu includes cocktails served out of syringes and bloody mannequin heads, pitchers of beer served in bedpan urinals and a drink billed as “sperm juice” which is served with a banana carved to look like a penis. Many of the novelty dishes come with waitress interaction such as being fed from a bottle or being instructed to lick the various bodily fluid stand-ins.

If the visceral horror theme of the food and decor is not enough, the staff enacts various regular “shows” where a diner will be pulled from their cell horrific clowns and nurses only to be “experimented on” with giant syringes and fake penises. A family fun spot this is not.

However Alcatraz ER is singularly devoted to their gruesome theme and eating there is guaranteed to be like no other restaurant in Japan (hopefully).

Update: The restaurant closed May 31, 2018.