Peter Luger and Madame Tussauds team up for dystopian dining experience in pandemic era

As a vegetarian and an automatophobe, I can’t say that a steakhouse populated with wax figures is something I would gladly step into. But I do appreciate how Peter Luger so skillfully leaned into our dystopian reality and delivered a delightful surreal landscape through a collaboration with Madame Tussauds. It’s like that Black mirror episode every season which is offered in an almost normal and happy universe where something is wrong. Sinister, even. In this case, they are wax mannequins representing diners in a restaurant where real humans are no longer allowed to be near each other due to a deadly virus that is raging around the world.

In a press release issued today before dining in the city reaches 35% capacity on Friday, Peter Luger Steak House announced the effort, which will help “ensure that customers continue to follow the measures distance security “by filling the empty seats with wax portraits of Jon Hamm, Audrey Hepburn, Jimmy Fallon and Al Roker. (Charles Entertainment Cheese was unfortunately unavailable.) The figures won’t be here forever, they will only be available until March 1.

I love to see these two legendary New York institutions come together – that’s why we live here, folks.