My kids’ favorite restaurant—hands down—is a local chain rotating sushi place. They love it. A few taps on a screen, no need to talk to anyone, and like magic, food shows up at the table. We actually don’t go too often as its not particularly cheap, but sometimes special occasions do arise and we give in.

They order the exact same thing: udon noodles. Every single time. And vanilla ice cream for dessert. Despite our many attempts—asking, encouraging, even flat-out pleading—I’ve yet to see either of them eat a single piece of sushi(To be sure, I hated it as a 14yo too… until I realized how expensive it was and it suddenly, magically started tasting much better)

That said, it’s honestly not a bad choice for me and Kacie as we’ve always enjoyed Japanese food. I pick a few rolls here and there, and she loves uni. The entire family doesn’t eat too much curiously, so the bill is actually manageable enough.

And apparently, we’re not the only ones that like this place. It’s is always packed; by 5 p.m. on a Friday, the waitlist is already 30+ minutes. Yes, we have the restaurant’s app. Yes, we collect rewards points. And yes, I more or less know the wait times by heart depending on the day and time. So at least we get seated in less than 5 minutes by planning ahead.

As for quality? I was never a Michelin-star kind of guy anyway, so I always leave happy. So do my daughters—mainly because they’re obsessed with dropping empty plates into the counting slot, which tallies your dishes and adds to the bill. Enough and this plastic egg drops with something inside.

It makes me wonder—what is it about places like this that appeals to adults, too? Maybe it’s the freedom of choice, the low stakes of trying something new (if you don’t like it, it was only a few bucks), or the sense of control when everything’s literally at your fingertips.

Going on a wide tangent, maybe that’s why we gravitate toward dashboards at work too—the desire and requirement to know what’s happening at any given moment, to feel like we’re in control. Just with fewer sushi plates and more charts though yes I’ve seen many a dashboard be silently retired.