Take In — instead of take out — is an American Express popup restaurant that will run through April where you go there to eat but use an app to order delivery from other restaurants.

Located in Finland, it’s a new kind of restaurant without a kitchen because it doesn’t need one. You don’t eat their food.

Credit: heidijosefiina

After ordering food using the Wolt app, “[g]uests eat their dinner in the Take In dining room.” They have bar service as well. Apparently it’s a solution for groups of people who can’t get everyone to agree on one place to eat.

Credit: milttonshowroom

Not everyone buys the concept, however.

The Take In model more resembles, if anything, the rise of coworking spaces — think of it as co-eating. Still, food cooked and served in the restaurant generally tastes better. Once a diner is going through the effort of not wearing sweatpants and also leaving the house, why not just spring for a full restaurant experience?

Of course the idea isn’t to create a new successful restaurant enterprise.

• It’s temporary. It’s edgy. It’s different. The point is to garner attention.
  
• It’s by American Express. So it’s about branding, being seen as trendsetting, and on the cutting edge of food as a way of appealing to a target demographic.

On that score it would seem to be a success, though since different divisions handle these sorts of activities in the U.S. and abroad I wouldn’t necessarily expect to see it translated here soon. But major corporations sponsoring innovative pop up restaurants in urban settings seems like an underexploited opportunity.

(HT: Marginal Revolution)