Nolan Bushnell (the visionary founder of Atari and Chuck E Cheese) is developing a new restaurant concept. The uWink Media Bistros will offer touch screen ordering via uWink Media Consuls, and while you wait for the food to be delivered, you can play proprietary uWink games. The first restaurant will be opened in Los Angeles within a few months, and Nolan hopes to have rapid growth via company owned restaurants and franchising. A former CPK and Koo Koo Roo executive, John Kaufman, is Director of Restaurant Operations.

If you believe in the concept, the timing is ripe to buy uWink stock which is currently trading around .36 cents. I think people want to eat and talk with friends and family at restaurants, and not play computer games, but I definitely would not short the stock and bet against Nolan. And, I think the concept would be a hit in Asia.

Not only is Nolan truly a visionary, he is an incredibly generous person. In 2002, when I launched an online game company, playENGINE>, I called him (with no introduction) to request a meeting, and he spent two hours with me.

(Touch screens for ordering at fast food restaurants seems to make a lot of sense, by the way. McDonald’s has piloted the concept in several restaurants.)

[Update: uWink has chosen the location for the first Media Bistro: Westfield Promenade in Woodland Hills, and will open in summer 2006.]