At The Immersive Lab, we study what makes an experience truly transformative. Pick & Cheese at Seven Dials Market offers a fascinating case study in how thoughtful immersive design can create both viral moments and sustainable business success. Having experienced it firsthand on a non-bottomless evening, we can confirm the concept works as brilliantly in practice as it does in theory.
Walking into Seven Dials Market’s historic banana warehouse, you’re immediately drawn to the rhythmic whir of machinery and the sight of glass-domed plates gliding past curious diners. This is Pick & Cheese – the world’s first cheese conveyor belt restaurant – and it represents something far more sophisticated than a viral dining novelty.
The Theatre of Anticipation
The 40-meter conveyor belt creates what we call “anticipatory engagement.” Unlike traditional restaurants where you order and wait, Pick & Cheese transforms diners into active participants scanning for their next selection. Each glass dome adds a reveal moment that turns simple food service into micro-theater. Whether you’re lifting a dome to discover Cornish Kern paired with clotted cream fudge or watching Tunworth with garlic and herbs glide past, every interaction becomes a small performance.
The acoustic design works equally well. The conveyor’s steady mechanical purr creates white noise that enhances conversation rather than drowning it out, while open kitchen sounds provide ambient energy without chaos. It’s sensory theater that engages multiple senses simultaneously.
Making Luxury Accessible Through Design
Pick & Cheese brilliantly solves the classic luxury experience problem: how to make premium products approachable without diluting the brand. The colour-coded pricing system (£3.95-£5.45) creates psychological permission to explore. Diners can stick to white plates on a budget or splurge on pink plates, but everyone experiences the same theatrical presentation.
This isn’t just smart pricing – it’s inclusive experience design that makes British artisanal cheese approachable rather than intimidating. The format democratizes what could be an exclusive experience, ensuring both tourists and locals feel comfortable participating.
The Gamification Masterclass
Pick & Cheese understands that modern diners crave agency in their experience. The pencil-and-menu system creates multiple engagement layers that transform eating into a personalized game. Each diner receives a pencil alongside their numbered menu, encouraging them to tick off selections, jot down favorites, and rate discoveries.
During our visit, we witnessed the full spectrum of behavioral responses. Some diners become completionists, methodically working through the entire numbered menu – a cheese bucket list in motion. Others, like my partner, approach it strategically, selecting six different plates to create a proper meal rather than just snacking. The beauty lies in how the format accommodates both approaches seamlessly.
The physical act of marking choices transforms passive consumption into active curation. Writing thoughts while tasting creates stronger memory formation than passive consumption. We left with marked menus that became conversation pieces, making the experience more memorable than any Instagram post. Personal investment grows with each tick mark, turning first-time visitors into return customers planning their next cheese adventure.
Behavioral Psychology in Motion
The format leverages powerful psychological triggers that keep diners engaged throughout their visit. Scarcity creates urgency without pressure – miss the Tunworth with garlic and herbs rotating past, and it might return, but the uncertainty drives engagement. This isn’t manufactured FOMO; it’s organic selection pressure that makes choices feel consequential.
Perhaps most brilliantly, those who opt for “safer” off-belt options like grilled cheese sandwiches experience a unique form of culinary envy. While enjoying their familiar comfort food, they watch endless varieties of artisanal cheese parade past, creating a persistent sense of “what if” that often drives return visits. This isn’t calculated manipulation – it’s sophisticated psychological design that transforms even cautious diners into future cheese explorers.
Authentic Engagement Over Performance
Despite its obvious social media appeal, Pick & Cheese succeeds because the experience transcends documentation. Having visited on a regular evening (avoiding the Wednesday bottomless rush), we discovered something remarkable: once seated, the urge to photograph diminishes as genuine curiosity takes over. The format naturally shifts focus from performing the experience to genuinely living it.
The conveyor becomes mesmerizing rather than performative. You find yourself scanning upcoming plates, debating choices, and engaging with fellow diners about selections. The Instagram moment happens organically – when you lift a glass dome to reveal perfectly paired cheese – but it’s secondary to the actual discovery. Testing the format on a non-bottomless evening proved the concept’s strength – we’d absolutely return, having experienced genuine value beyond the novelty.
Location Intelligence and Community Building
Seven Dials Market represents immersive retail done right – a historic warehouse transformed into a curated food destination. Pick & Cheese benefits from this ecosystem effect, where visitors come for the market experience and discover the cheese conveyor as an unexpected delight. The tourist-to-local ratio shifts throughout the day, with international visitors dominating lunch service while Londoners claim evening slots.
The Wednesday bottomless concept (£29.50 for unlimited belt plates) transforms a discount offer into a weekly ritual. Regular attendees develop preferences, build relationships, and create user-generated content that markets itself. This isn’t just customer retention – it’s community formation that extends beyond the restaurant through merchandise and a cookbook, creating touchpoints that keep the brand present between visits.
Operational Innovation Disguised as Fun
The conveyor system isn’t just theatrical – it’s brilliant operations masked as entertainment. Pre-portioned plates eliminate kitchen bottlenecks during peak times. The colour-coded sticker system ensures food safety without visible timers that might stress diners. The 75-minute dining window maintains turnover while providing enough time for proper cheese education.
Staff can focus on wine pairing and education rather than order-taking, elevating the service experience while reducing labour costs. Technology integration happens seamlessly – QR code menus and booking platforms enhance rather than dominate the experience, while timing systems and color coding remain invisible to diners.
Global Validation: The Ultimate Proof
The cheese conveyor belt revolution isn’t stopping in London. NYC’s upcoming Shaver Hall – opening in the historic Lord & Taylor building at 424 Fifth Avenue – will feature “a yet-to-be-named cheese conveyer belt experience” among its 35,000 square feet of curated dining concepts. This isn’t The Cheese Bar expanding; it’s a completely different organization recognizing the format’s potential and adapting it for American tastes.
Meanwhile, Nashville’s Culture + Co. has already opened “the first rotating charcuterie bar in America” inside L&L Market, proving the concept translates across cultures and culinary traditions. The Berlin expansion demonstrates format flexibility – same theatrical presentation, German cheese producers. From London to Berlin to Nashville to New York, the cheese conveyor belt has become a genuinely portable immersive retail framework that transcends geographic and cultural boundaries.
The Emotional Architecture of Discovery
Pick & Cheese creates what we term “approachable discovery” – the thrill of trying something new within a familiar framework. The conveyor belt format feels playful and non-threatening, while cheese education happens organically through tasting rather than formal presentation. This emotional journey – curiosity, anticipation, discovery, satisfaction, community – follows classic experience design principles while feeling completely natural.
The experience provides multiple value layers: sustenance, education, entertainment, and social connection. This multi-dimensional value proposition justifies premium pricing while ensuring repeat visits. Diners aren’t just buying cheese – they’re participating in British food culture, learning about artisanal production, and creating shareable moments.
Why It Works: The Perfect Formula
Pick & Cheese succeeds because it occupies the intersection of entertainment, education, and consumption while understanding that immersive retail isn’t about technology or theatrics – it’s about creating genuine moments of discovery and connection. The cheese conveyor belt works because every element serves both operational efficiency and experiential delight.
The concept demonstrates several key principles that other immersive retail designers can learn from. Taking known formats and applying them in new contexts creates instant comprehension with sustained interest. Success requires multi-sensory engagement beyond visual appeal – sound, movement, anticipation, and discovery all contribute to memorability. The best immersive experiences solve real business problems while creating delight, and building rituals for repeat engagement matters more than maximizing single-visit spend.
Most importantly, experiences that naturally generate shareable content outperform those that try to force it. Pick & Cheese proves that the best immersive experiences photograph beautifully, operate profitably, build community authentically, and scale internationally. The result is something rare in London’s competitive food scene: an experience that works as hard as it plays.
In an industry often criticized for prioritizing Instagram moments over substance, Pick & Cheese demonstrates that thoughtful design can create experiences that are simultaneously profitable, scalable, and genuinely engaging. For immersive retail designers, it offers a masterclass in creating experiences that make business sense while delivering authentic delight – they just make it look effortless.
