Once upon a time, specifically, the deeply weird and wonderful late 1990s—New York City played host to a restaurant so bonkers, so gloriously over-the-top, it made Chuck E. Cheese look like a minimalist bistro.
That restaurant was Mars 2112, a 33,000-square-foot fever dream located just off Times Square, where you could slurp neon cocktails in a lava cave while being judged by a waiter in full alien cosplay.
Yes, this was real.
Image Via Jim Henderson, Wikipedia.
Launched in November 1998, Mars 2112 was the brainchild of Irish entrepreneur Paschal Phelan, who apparently looked at Planet Hollywood and thought, “What if we skipped Earth entirely?”
And thus, Mars 2112 was born—an intergalactic dining experience that promised patrons a trip to the Red Planet without leaving Manhattan or needing a passport (or oxygen).
Photo Courtesy Daroff Design Inc. + DDI Architects, PC
A Space Odyssey… Through a Times Square Basement
Guests entered through a faux spaceport and were herded into a “shuttle simulator” (read: a vibrating room with flashing lights), which launched them on a cosmic voyage to Mars.
Upon “landing,” you were deposited into the Crystal Crater—a massive dining hall decked out in glowing stalactites, molten rock textures, and enough fiber-optic lighting to power a small city.
A look at the crazy, three level interior. Photo Courtesy Daroff Design Inc. + DDI Architects, PC
There were Martian servers in prosthetics, a menu featuring dishes like the Cosmic Cobb Salad and Galaxy Grill, and a cocktail list straight out of a Buck Rogers wet bar.
From the OG Mars 2112 website.
The food was straight out of the tourist trap playbook, albeit with some rather dubious attempts at Mars theming the dishes. Suffice it to say, the food was almost an afterthought, thanks to the wild experiential decor.
Photo Courtesy Daroff Design Inc. + DDI Architects, PC
They even had an arcade, because nothing pairs with deep-fried mozzarella like a few rounds of Martian skee-ball.
Alex Novell has an excellent mini-doc about the restaurant on YouTube:
At its peak, Mars 2112 was the stuff of legend. Tourists lined up for hours. Kids lost their minds.
Even Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt stopped by, presumably in search of galactic nachos or a good escape pod.
Photo Courtesy Daroff Design Inc. + DDI Architects, PC
Crash Landing: Why Mars 2112 Went Supernova
But alas, like many space missions, Mars 2112 encountered… technical difficulties. First came the post-9/11 tourism slump, which hit NYC hard.
Then the novelty wore off, turns out once you’ve been to Mars for mozzarella sticks, you don’t really need to go back.
Image via Gothamist.
The restaurant filed for bankruptcy twice (in 2002 and again in 2007), dabbled in nightclub events to stay afloat, and eventually found itself in a spiral of landlord disputes and financial black holes.
By January 2012, Mars 2112 had finally closed, leaving behind only memories, unpaid bills, and possibly a few stray Martians looking for work in Midtown.
Ironically it closed a full 100 years before the restaurant’s name sake date.
Regardless, the pure madness it took to create such a tacky yet strangely inspired destination is worthy of some love itself.
Bon Appetit has a great article about the oddities of Mars 2112.
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