No secret recipes at open source restaurant

Back in 2008 we wrote about Arne Hendriks’s plan to create a crowdsourced restaurant in Amsterdam. As of December, the resulting eatery—called by its founders “the world’s first open source restaurant”—has now opened. At the Instructables Restaurant, which launched as a pop-up event at the historic Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag in Amsterdam, patrons receive not only creatively-cooked food but also instructions for preparing everything they see, eat and use—including the furniture. For example, someone seeking the recipe for the Tom Kha Gai soup they just enjoyed can either claim it at the restaurant or download it online; and anyone interested in making their own versions of the restaurant’s recycled 50-gallon barrel chairs can do likewise. Everything in the restaurant derives from Instructables, a web-based documentation platform where people share their expertise with others, whether it’s cooking, pottery or woodworking. Even the instructions for creating the restaurant itself are now available on Instructables.com. Is this a model to emulate for MIY (make-it-yourself) fans in your part of the world? (Related: Crowdsourced restaurant taps local community — Restaurant lets patrons make their own pancakes — Open source eco-car, designed by wiki.)