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Food

This Restaurant Lets You Fire Guns While You Wait for Dinner

Modern Round serves its appetizers and entrees with a side of all-you-can-shoot "replica firearms molded into the size, shape and weight of actual firearms."

It seems slightly redundant for Modern Round to have to identify its cuisine as "American." When a restaurant allows its customers to shoot guns while they wait for their Bud Light and order of deep-fried macaroni and cheese puffs, we're pretty sure the "American" part is implied. That's the concept behind Modern Round, an Arizona bar and restaurant that serves its appetisers and entrees with a side of all-you-can-shoot sidearms.

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No, the guns aren't real, but the experience is as close as you should ever get while you're simultaneously chewing a hot dog. According to Modern Round's extensive FAQ, its guests shoot "replica firearms moulded into the size, shape and weight of actual firearms." Amateur action heroes will shoot at 16-foot screens while zombies, flying pigs, or even real-life police "shoot or don't shoot" scenarios play in front of them. In addition to the top-shelf laser-enhanced technology, some of the weapons even have a CO2 system that "provides realistic recoil and blowback."

A photo posted by Modern Round (@modernround) on Jul 30, 2016 at 6:08pm PDT

According to Forbes, the company was founded by Mitchell Saltz, who was once the chairman and CEO of—wait for it—Smith & Wesson. The Peoria, Arizona location is just the first in what he hopes will be a series of Modern Round restaurants that will dot the US like a pile of spent CO2 cartridges at a patron's feet. The company pitched its idea to potential investors at this week's ICR Conference in Orlando, where it received what Forbes described as a "mixed response." Some of the concept's critics thought that guns were just too divisive an issue to warrant an investment.

READ MORE: Man Allegedly Shoots Gun in Pizzeria, Then Says He's 'Just Kidding'

Modern Round insists that safety is its priority and that, even though these are replica weapons, its guests will be instructed on the proper way to hold a firearm and given some safety instructions. (And sorry, kids: you have to be 12 or older to blast your way through Grandma's birthday party). It also requests a $5 annual membership fee, which allows members to reserve tables and shooting lanes by the hour.

A photo posted by Modern Round (@modernround) on Jun 10, 2016 at 1:57pm PDT

The membership fee was also a point of contention from some customers who reviewed the restaurant on Yelp. Others criticised the actual shooting experience ("There's no bang, little kick (recoil) and found us going through [magazines] faster than they could resupply them"), one guy wondered if there were technical difficulties because his wife out-shot him and a well-meaning mother was "shocked" by the adult language that her 14-year-old heard while he was shooting his own gun.

If things go Saltz' way, Modern Round restaurants will soon be open in Las Vegas, Dallas, and San Antonio. If you go, though, you have to leave your real gun in the car. Modern Round will let you fire all the replicas you want, but all actual weapons are prohibited. Ain't that America.