Apple wasn’t doing well, suffering through the awkward years between the Mac and the iPod. Jobs would return officially in 1997, but in the meantime, Apple was contemplating how to make some fast cash by licensing its name. In this gap leading to its renaissance, Apple considered a concept that feels wild, yet, in retrospect, almost inevitable: the Apple Cafe.

It wasn’t an Apple store you’d recognize today, nor was it even designed by Apple. The Apple Cafe, uncovered again recently by Armin Vit, was a retro-future diner with neon lighting and computers at every table. Like a Planet Hollywood born from Cupertino’s womb, you could teleconference with the next booth over, or order a meal with an Apple computer, all from a cafe that looked like the Back to the Future 2 backlot.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this whimsical vision was brought to life by ex-Disney talent. Former Imagineer Tony Christopher founded Landmark Entertainment Group in 1980, and Landmark would go on to create theme park attractions for Universal Studios (including early concepts on Back to the Future: The Ride), along with groundbreaking, theatrical retail experiences like the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian in Las Vegas.

In a recent call with Co.Design, Christopher recounted the development behind the Apple Cafe, which, though it went down in history as Apple’s forgotten attempt to make a quick buck, may have been foundational for the Apple Store itself. And he shared the images you see here–many of which seem to have never been released before.

Jobs’s Cybercafe

According to Christopher, Apple wasn’t sure what it wanted when it approached Landmark. But the first inklings of Jobs’s idea for the Apple Store were there:

We were contacted by Apple because of all of our experience to that point. We were the go-to guys with creating something unique in the retail space. Steve Jobs–who we never met by the way–selected the team we were working with, because he was looking for a way to connect Apple to its customers . . . a way to have the customers sort of touch Apple. We didn’t go to the campus. It was a team put together who met with us in our office. We had little Apple Cafe jackets that they made, so we were on their team!

Twenty years ago, cybercafes were a radical idea: