The Weather Notebook: Mayan Dining

Mayan Dining
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No doubt you've heard about restaurants offering dining "alfresco"-- outside in the fresh air and weather. But what about the few restaurants that have dared to bring the weather inside. Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather Notebook. As correspondent, Jeff Rice reports today there is one such restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah where soaking rainstorms with lightning and thunder are a centerpiece to the indoor dining experience.

It's the middle of winter and outside it's freezing. We're in the suburbs of Salt Lake City eating dinner in a simulated tropical rain forest. Young men are throwing themselves off cliffs into a lagoon near our table. Now this is entertainment.

A few years ago a local car dealer had a vision. As far as I can tell it was to recreate the Mayan civilization as if it were a cross between Chuck E Cheese and Las Vegas. Restaurant manager Jor'l Campbell.

"The Mayan Restaurant is a very unique themed restaurant. We seat a thousand people. The rain forest floor is really the temple ruins of the Mayan society, so as you walk up each level you're actually climbing up a Mayan temple.

And, if you're going to put your restaurant in a simulated plastic plant rainforest you're going to need some simulated rain. Every twenty minutes or so a Mayan goddess conjures up a monsoon and flash flood.

"Oh, weather's definitely important. It creates that excitement.

Except we don't actually have to get wet.

"I hate to admit it's not all natural."

But, while the ancient Mayans were said to have made sacrifices to the gods to bring the weather, here it's a lot easier. The rains come like clockwork accompanied by chips and salsa.

Correspondent Jeff Rice often dines closer to home in Boise, Idaho.