Prison Food: So Good It Should be Illegal

From restaurants inside actual working prisons, to prison-themed restaurants, who knew that so many people pay to dine behind bars?

Fortezza Medicea

At one of the most exclusive restaurants in Italy, you never know if the cooks and waiters are thieves and murderers…literally.

In the picturesque town of Volterra, Italy, the maximum-security prison Fortezza Medicea is home to an exclusive restaurant where the inmates prepare and serve gourmet food.

The restaurant is part of the prison’s rehabilitation program, which aims to teach inmates skills that they can use to gain employment once they are on the outside. The program also raises money for charity.

Before securing a reservation at the restaurant, guests must pass a background check and receive security clearance. Upon arrival, cell phones and bags are confiscated, and guests must pass through metal detectors before entering.

Inside the 500-year-old deconsecrated chapel, guests must eat their meals with plastic cutlery and paper plates. But this does not detract from the ambiance—man serving time for murder plays classical music on the piano in the background.

Pollsmoor Mess

Known for the significant role it played during the era of apartheid, Pollsmoor Prison near Cape Town South Africa is a working prison housing 8,000 inmates, many serving life sentences.

Even Nelson Mandela did time at Pollsmoor before his release in 1990, after having served 18 years at Robben Island.

Visitors come from all over to enjoy multiple breakfast, lunch, and dinner courses of inexpensive international cuisine at Pollsmoor Mess, served by polite and proper waiters dressed in tucked-in white oxfords and bow ties. Once upon a time they stole cars, ran drugs and headed gangs, but now they prepare and serve food, while also serving time.

The restaurant is part of the prison’s rehab program so that prisoners can learn a trade skill before they are released back into society. Just make sure to leave a tip, you don’t want to get these waiters angry at you!

Clink

If you notice that Boston’s Liberty Hotel looks a little like a jail, it’s probably because it once was. Formerly the Charles Street Jail, the luxury hotel that opened in September of 2007 after a 5 year renovation once housed notorious criminals like con artist Frank Abingale, Jr. (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “Catch Me If You Can”)
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“Clink,” the hotel’s restaurant, has customers behind bars and cell doors as they order from waiters and waitresses wearing prison uniforms, and now includes guests like Meg Ryan and Mick Jagger.

The hotel’s bar, “Alibi,” used to be the jail’s actual drunk tank.

The Lockup

At this haunted jail/dungeon-themed restaurant, you walk down a dark flight of stairs past skeletons to get to the entrance. Then you are handcuffed by a woman dressed in a short PVC skirt and led to your cell for dinner.

After sitting down, a woman dressed like a prisoner presents you with a box filled with complimentary vitamins, or “rations” for you to choose from.

Drinks are served in large syringes and other science-lab/hospital-like objects, with names themed after Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or after women who died gruesome deaths, like Joan of Arc and Marie Antoinette.

About once an hour, the lights turn off and strobe lights begin flashing. An announcement comes over the loudspeakers that “the monsters have escaped,” and staff dressed in monster costumes run around the restaurant barging into cells and terrorizing the guests.

Eventually, police women dressed in PVC round everyone up and things return to “normal.”

Alcatraz ER

Alcatraz ER, also known as Shibuya Medical Prison, is a combination of a prison, hospital, and medieval dungeon all combined into one eating environment.

When you arrive at the restaurant, you must state your blood type to enter. Women dressed in nurse outfits will handcuff you and lead you to your cell, which is a dingy room resembling a medieval dungeon.

The restaurant serves cocktails in test tubes or through a hospital drip. The cocktails have names like “Acute Mental Stabilizer” and “Influenza.” Meals are delivered in the metal dishes that surgeons use.

During dinner, an “escaped prisoner” wearing a Jason mask will run around the restaurant and terrorize the customers.
Here’s one person’s account of Alcatraz ER:

“While I was there, an unsuspecting birthday girl on another table was thrown the over the knee of a maniacal doctor, who prodded her arse with a giant syringe while she squealed.”

“I’m sure you can tell it’s a very classy establishment!”

“The food and drinks in this place ain’t cheap, but it’s worth a trip just for the novelty value.”

Obake-ya

The interior of Obake-ya Restaurant in Penang, Malaysia is actually designed to look like a prison, complete with waitresses wearing police uniforms and a fake prisoner who sits chained to an electric chair.

The main “canteen”, which serves drinks in beakers with syringes, is for smaller groups of people, but the restaurant can accommodate groups of 20 in private rooms.