[imagesource:facebook/restaurantofmistakenorders]

A restaurant in Tokyo has become famous as the only place where customers are happy with bad service and mistaken orders – hence the eatery’s name: The Restaurant Of Mistaken Orders.

You may order sushi and get an omelet, or ask for a glass of water only to see the waiter drinking it on their way past your table. As strange as it sounds, the only qualification needed to work here is that you have to suffer from dementia.

Before anyone mentions ‘exploitation’, the restaurant was set up as a recurring pop-up, held a number of times over several days, to broaden the public’s awareness of dementia. But the mistakes and confusion has now led many to believe that the experience is more special than the food.

The Restaurant Of Mistaken Orders has become a place filled with laughter and positivity, where people are only too happy to be served someone else’s coffee.

A Japanese television director, Shiro Oguni, created the business to change perceptions about ageing and progressive cognitive impairment. Dementia is a general term describing decline in memory, learning and communication skills. It’s caused by a number of different conditions, one of them being Alzheimer’s, which is a specific disease.

The idea occurred to him when he was served a dumpling instead of a burger while visiting a nursing home.

At first, he was going to send the dumpling back, but then he realised he was in a different world, with varying levels of functionality, including mistakes that didn’t really harm anyone. Why not just accept what you get as a way of respecting the difficulties the people around him face? It is the very essence of kindness and humility.

Videos about the unique restaurant have drawn positive comments, and people notice how everyone, from waiters to patrons, are always smiling and having fun. Interacting with people who suffer from dementia also helps them retain a level of productivity, communication, and above all else – self-worth.

During one of the first pop-ups, 37% of the orders were mistaken, yet 99% percent of the customers said they were happy with their meal. People seem to enjoy the waiters forgetting they are working and sitting down with them, or asking customers please take a glass of water to another table.

Besides trying to educate and create understanding around dementia, Oguni also believes it shows another very important aspect of how we interact with each other: kindness and patience.

“We want to change society to become more caring and easy-going, so, dementia or no dementia, we can live together in harmony.”

With a large population of older people in Japan, it is perhaps not surprising that the restaurant is a hit. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from getting the wrong meal delivered to your table.

We all grow old, but we don’t have to grow out of being kind to each other.

[source:forbes]