You get in the car and drive to the diner. You open the door and go inside. The hostess stand is deserted, in fact, the whole room is, except for a cleaning robot gliding across the floor towards the far end. It smells like cleaning products and the lights are off. It seems like the counter has been ripped out as well, its footprint shoddily patched over with linoleum tile that doesn’t match the checkered black and white of the rest of the floor. Food storage cases with opaque doors line the far wall, where the stove, coffeepot, and things like that ought to be, with a kiosk and coffee machine capping the end off.
You walk up to the kiosk and see what it has to offer. There’s a page for pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy - the classics, but not much else. You pay for a plate of pancakes, a side of home fries, and a cup of coffee. You hear two clicks and two of the opaque doors open ajar, revealing your food behind them. You take the food and sit down at a booth, and begin to eat.
The coffee is watery, the pancakes are a bit chewy, and the home fries are somewhat bland. In addition, the butter and syrup taste artificial and strange, and not in the usual guilty-pleasure diner way. There are worse meals to have, but there are also better ones, especially at these high prices. You finish up your food, put your plate in the dish slot, and head outside.