Spielberg's Biggest Flop
In 1994 the Director opened a disastrous submarine-themed restaurant called DIVE! Now, the long lost restaurant merchandise has been rediscovered...
{SKIP TO THE BOTTOM FOR MERCH, OTHERWISE CONTINUE READING}
“Ladies and gents, prepare to Dive!”
In 1994, fresh off the success of Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg embarked on his biggest flop ever when he opened a $7 million 300-seat submarine-themed monstrosity called Dive! with his pal, Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The eleven thousand square foot dumpster fire set sail at a time when cash-incinerators like Fashion Cafe, Hard Rock Cafe, and Rain Forest Cafe were opening all over the world-– the majority of them kept afloat by touristic merchandise hounds rather than subpar jalapeno poppers.
No matter how trendy experiential dining was in the mid-nineties, Spielberg seemed to overestimate a diner’s desire to “submerge” every forty-five minutes. This meant the restaurant darkened to black as water flushed, gushed and bubbled amidst disorienting alarms until the ship captain’s minimum-wage skipper muffled a less than entertaining update to inform nauseated diners that they were now scarfing at periscope depth…
The restaurant took its first plunge on May 11th 1994. By the early 2000s, after hosting a lot of F-list celebrities like Jon Lovitz’s 3rd cousin Bill and closing down the restaurant to accommodate all of Larry King’s ex-wives — flooding in millions dollars of operating losses and inducing more than a few whale-sized seizures — Dive! drowned. And to think they wanted to open 60 world-wide Dive! locations in the coming years.
The only remnants from the rubble of one sea-encrusted ship are these t-shirts and hats…still in wearable condition, all with their original price tags.