Zoo restaurants with windows onto enclosures
- Thread starter ZooSGanimallover
- Start date
Bali Safari has a Tsavo Lion Restaurant where you can eat besides the enclosures of Lions and Meerkats.
Not exactly in a zoo, but in Chimelong Hotel (the hotel next to Chimelong safari park), the buffet restaurant is next to a white tiger exhibit.
Someone has mentioned the snow leopard enclosure next to the restaurant at Twycross Zoo. The problem is the snow leopards are often resting up somewhere and don't always display themselves well. I feel a primate species, such as a gibbon species, should have been offered this enclosure as gibbons would be almost continually active, providing a greater level of interest for you as you eat your lunch.
Not necessarily. When you go to the zoo for a one-off visit, you want to see all the animals active (as opposed to if it is your local zoo and you visit very often, in which case you would want to spend a long time in front of one exhibit every time you go to have gotten the best views of all the species housed after, say, 20 visits). This means that for most members of the public, who are by nature disinterested by an animal they cannot see, will not spend lots of time in front of the snow leopards but instead will observe the gibbons for 30 minutes. The restaurant allows the public to view the snow leopards for 30 minutes whilst eating (so that they cannot go away), and perhaps get a good sighting of these endangered leopards in all the time that they are eating.
Zooplantman
Well-Known Member
And, if I might add to this insightful comment, it keeps the restaurant from being a viewing area and allows tables to turn over when people are finished. Is it good customer relations to have no tables in your restaurant because people have occupied them to watch gibbons?
Exactly. I would like that post multiple times if I could.
In addition, it is a proven fact that seeing an elusive animal briefly or for a tiny period of time feels more rewarding than seeing a species basically playing next to the glass for ages. This is because: firstly, you feel as if you have accomplished something by spotting it, secondly, you know that this species is highly endangered and therefore it feels more special that you have seen and thirdly snow leopards are objectively more beautiful than gibbons. This means that because you have spent so long (sub-consciously at least) looking for the snow leopard, when you finally see it, you feel satisfied and come away from the zoo happier.
The Tropics Cafe at the Palm Beach zoo has windows that look into a flamingo and capybara mixed species yard.