Silent Restaurant Role-Play

A role-play game in which each group runs a restaurant without words: customers order in mime, servers carry plates balanced through a cone course and cooks prepare the food with gestures. It combines nonverbal communication, balance and teamwork.

How to play

1. Set up 5 restaurants (3 min): a "table" with a cardstock menu of 6 pictured dishes and, about 8 yards away, a "kitchen," with 4 cones in a zigzag between them.
2. Groups of 5: 2 customers, 2 servers and 1 cook. Customers order a dish from the menu using mime only.
3. The server crosses the zigzag with a flat disc cone on an open palm and passes the order to the cook in mime; the cook "cooks" it for 10 seconds.
4. The server returns with the plate balanced and serves it; customers eat in mime and react. If it is the right dish, the group scores a point.
5. Every 4 minutes, blow the whistle and rotate roles until everyone has done all three (12 min).
6. Wrap-up (2 min): Which gesture was hardest to understand, and how did you solve it?

Rules

• No talking in the restaurant: everything is ordered, cooked and served with gestures.
• If the plate falls, the server goes back to the start of the zigzag.
• Servers walk fast but do not run, to avoid collisions.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: the student can be the cook, who stays put, or a server carrying the plate on their lap in the wheelchair.
• Visual impairment: the path is a straight line guided by a rope on the floor, and the order is passed with touch gestures on the hand.
• Shy students: start as the cook, the role with the smallest audience, before becoming a customer.

Learning goals

• Communicate precise messages through mime.
• Move while keeping an object balanced.
• Take on different roles and work together toward a shared goal.

Equipment for a class of 25

• flat disc cones: 10
• cones: 20
• cardstock: 10

Teacher tip

Draw menu dishes that look very different from each other (soup, ice cream, pizza, fish) so they can be mimed. Keep an eye on the kitchens: that is where words usually sneak in.

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