The Astro Cafe is the preferred late night diner of the retro future. If you wander on in at three in the morning you just never know who you'll run into there, or how they'll feel about your running into them; but mainly the Astro has a relaxed atmosphere and a tempting menu for both people and mechanical people.

Mabel, the robot waitress, has been there for as long as anyone can remember and she's pretty hard to impress. Mostly, folks don't even try. But she serves a good strong cup of coffee - which is important - and she's not outright abusive. Mostly.

There's something sort of comforting about knowing that she's there, wherever you are, yourself.

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The Astro cafe scene is one I worked on for quite a while back in 2004 (in the days of the Day Job, when hours were few) and to my surprise it's only taken me a week to finish it up and get it ready for prime time, as it were. As usual, this is all 3DS Max and Photoshop. I'm thinking about two more pictures of the diner in the near future.

Oddly (or not) I once lived just around the corner from a coffee shop called Astro in LA's Silverlake neighborhood; and there was a hostess there who was not unlike Mabel, in some ways. But although I did once see a rocket go by, I never saw anyone wearing goggles in there.