UK’s first 24-hour 'staffless' restaurant to launch in Oxford

The UK’s first 24-hour staffless restaurant is to open in Oxford this winter, serving a range of Korean ramen.

Customers at EZ 24 Ramen will pay a subscription to access the site, where they can use machines to cook their own noodles with a range of toppings.

The concept was inspired by a visit to an unmanned ramen store in South Korea during the pandemic and hopes to attract people who want a quick and easy meal.

EZ 24 Ramen will operate via daily (£1.70), weekly or monthly subscriptions, with a maximum of 40 trips a month. Subscribers will be able to enter the building by scanning a QR code using an app.

The machines can cook packets of ramen, such as Shin, Neoguri, Buldak, in three minutes with customisable toppings such as kimchi, mushroom, pickles and bean sprouts.

Drinks, ice creams and meal kits will also be sold in Korean and Japanese-style vending machines, and the store will feature arcade games, WiFi and plug sockets for laptops.

The store will be monitored by CCTV 24-hours a day with a team member occasionally visiting to restock the machines and clean the restaurant.

Indra Tor, one of the owners of EZ Ramen, who has a background in voxel (3D pixel) art and the Sandbox metaverse, has also launched the restaurant’s own NFT. Anyone who owns the NFT can eat free at the store until they sell it on.

She said: “I wanted to create a forward-thinking place that looks at how people live their lives today. The world has changed, and people’s habits are different. EZ Ramen is about being forward-thinking about technology and how we can create a restaurant that is different and embraces new things, but also allow people to learn.”

EZ Ramen intends to open its first store in Oxford and “quickly expand to other locations around the UK”, before launching in America.