Food blog SeriousEating has a nifty post on the history of revolving restaurants.Turns out the first one ever was opened in 1961 in Hawaii by Seattle architect John Graham atop the Ala Moana Office Building (where it remains today doing what I'm not exactly sure but definitely not rotating). In its day La Ronde (the name of the restaurant) was the top dining experience in the island, a posh spinning platter in the sky. Here's an excerpt from an American Heritage magazine article on the topic.

"It was an intriguing idea, but not a simple one. How could it be managed? At first glance the way to do it seemed to be to install the restaurant in a separate round casing on top of the main building and rotate the entire structure. But that introduced serious engineering problems. The load to be carried would be excessive, as would the forces created by wind. The alternative was to rotate only the dining area, keeping the peripheral walls, the ceiling, and the central service areas stationary. This approach would have its own challenges, including figuring out the speed of rotation people could handle while dining and stepping on and off rotating areas.

Graham’s engineers proceeded to design a 16-foot-wide cog-driven turntable, ring-shaped like a doughnut. Unlike smaller turntables and merry-go-rounds, it couldn’t be powered from a central shaft, for the center of the ring wouldn’t be rotating. Rather the doughnut would be mounted on flanged wheels riding on a circular track under its flooring. Food would be prepared in a kitchen on the floor below and elevated to the immobile central service area by a dumbwaiter. La Ronde opened in 1961, and in 1964 Graham obtained the first U.S. patent for a revolving restaurant."

Image courtesy of 1313ilikai.com

—Alex, 04/12/07