Uncanny koi pond installation spotted on the floor of a restaurant: Diabolical

It’s a design choice worth pondering.A Tennessee restaurant’s very unique koi pond installation went viral on X over the weekend — and it’s drawing comparisons to other remarkable animal habitats at eateries around the US.

On Friday, X.com user Phillip Thurgood posted a snapshot with the caption, “Chinese buffet koi pond is one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever seen.” The image, which shows a koi enclosure built directly into the floor of an ostensible restaurant dining room, has since gone viral with nearly 7 million views.The pond, located at the China Buffet in Kimball, TN, is delineated only by a squat, white tile wall and lined with the same ubiquitous brown tile as the flooring outside of the tank.

It’s also outfitted with a modest waterfall and a few indoor plants.Notably, a submerged flood drain appears surrounded by cracked tile, indicating an architectural anomaly may have previously occurred.Several X users debated the whimsical restaurant feature, adding their own theories about its inception and similar installations at their local Asian-American eateries.

“I see Indiana and Tennessee mentioned and would like to confirm this is a common sight in Kentucky as well,” one frequent diner confirmed.Indeed, the indoor koi pond is a relatively common feature, according to comments in Thurgood’s viral thread.“Local buffet has what we call the koi ‘Saw’ trap,” one shared alongside the frightful image of a ground-level fish tank with a live power strip danging mere inches above the water.“This even tops the gator pond from a Laguna Beach restaurant I went to in Florida,” another joked on X, including an image of a glowing green outdoor enclosure with more than a dozen alligators resting at the water’s edge.A Vietnamese food fan added a lizard habitat to the mix, reportedly seen at their local pho spot.Meanwhile, some X users speculated the pond’s function and aesthetics, with one dubbing it an example of “negative f...