Inari Noodle made a come back after almost 10 years as a taxi special edition!
There's a disused kiosk right next to a taxi terminal on Sudermanstraße, Köln, and Inari Wishiki was commissioned by Akademie der Künste der Welt / Köln and Noordkaap Artspace to take over the building for the opening night of A Taxi Happening NOORDKAAP TAXI.
TAXI INARI NOODLE is an instant noodles noodle bar where the price is set based on the same metrics as a taximeter. The less time spent, the cheaper the bill.
The noodle bar playfully shows the inherent conflict of interest between a profit maker and a customer. For the person running the noodle bar, the more time a customer spends, the better.
Although there was no instruction given on how fast they should eat noodles, most customers ended up trying to finish the noodles as quick as possible. This indicates a kind of a "taximeter" is naturally embedded in most people's default mindsets.
The font used on the taximeter is Taxi Meter by David J Patterson.
The taxi meter code is on github and you can try it here.