‘Such a cool concept’: Man visits a Kansas restaurant with no servers and starts filming. Then he shows how the food gets delivered

A TikTok creator who posts as It’s just zim filmed a visit to a restaurant he said had no servers. In the video, he told viewers they had to call in an order and that the food would then arrive on tracks running through the dining room.

He showed a woman at the table using a retro-style telephone. An off-screen woman’s voice could be heard saying, “Yeah, just a bite with onion.” He pointed to a model train carrying a small wooden box and said he thought that train had their food.

The first train stopped and a platform lowered, but the box stayed on the train and moved away. He said, “I guess that wasn’t our food.” Later he said another train was theirs, described picking the box off the tray, and added, “Such a cool concept.”

Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant has used overhead tracks since the 1970s

Commenters identified the spot as Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas. Travis Meier wrote for Axios that anyone who grew up in Kansas City would likely remember the trains, hats, and shakes there. He wrote that the restaurant has been around since the 1950s and that he had not visited until recently.

Meier wrote that the restaurant’s best-known feature came about two decades after it opened. He said owner and inventor Fritz Kropf came up with a delivery system called the “Skat kat” to deal with labor shortages. Meier wrote that people started calling the system a train, and that the theme then took off. Such unique dining experiences often spark online discussion, as seen when a hibachi chef put on a show but one man was there just for the food. 

The Takeout reported that Fritz Kropf founded the restaurant in 1954. The outlet said he was a World War II veteran whose father had run a restaurant called John’s Place since the 1920s. The Takeout stated that Fritz’s began as a typical 1950s drive-in and that Kropf, described as a tinkerer, installed the automatic delivery system in the early 1970s.

The Takeout said the system was first called the “Skat Kat,” but diners kept calling it a train. The outlet wrote that Kropf resisted that name at first and later leaned into the railroad theme. Meier wrote that the Crown Center location he visited opened in 1999, along with the rebirth of Union Station.

Meier described how the system works. He wrote that diners order by picking up a phone on the wall and pressing a button. He said rail lines along the ceiling carry mini trains that light up, toot, and carry baskets of food. When a train arrives, he wrote, a mechanical arm catches the basket and slides it onto a tray that drops to the table.

In the TikTok video, It’s just zim gave a similar account. He said the whole restaurant is covered with tracks that run from the kitchen to the tables. He told viewers that once the box comes down, they pick it off the tray and set it on the table.

Meier wrote that the dining room was lively, with trains making noise, children laughing and crying, and a rideable motorized train near the kitchen. He described soda-shop stools, root beer floats, and red gingham tray paper. He said a paper conductor hat costs 25 cents for adults.

Meier wrote that the menu is à la carte. He said he ordered a double cheeseburger for $7, fries for $4, and a small chocolate shake for $5. The Takeout described the food as typical American fare such as hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken sandwiches, and said a specialty is hamburgers served with grilled onions.

Meier wrote that he went at 12:30 p.m. on a Thursday and that the restaurant was packed with children. He said that as a solo diner in his 30s, he was probably not the main audience, but that he still watched the trains and left feeling a little fuller. The Takeout reported that the restaurant now has three locations and remains in the Kropf family after Fritz Kropf died in 2004 and his wife, Virginia, died in 2018.

Viewers responded to the TikTok video and to the idea of a dining room without servers. One commenter identified the restaurant for other viewers. They wrote, “it’s Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas for everyone else.”

Another commenter focused on the lack of staff at the table. They wrote, “No human interaction, sign me up.” A third commenter tied the setup to tipping. They wrote, “Thats one way to eliminate tipping.”