These things really suck. The novelty wears off instantly. It's uncomfortable having to either stand up to get something from the robot or awkwardly reach over while sitting down. The moment when food comes out is the most likely time for customers to express positive emotion at a restaurant. You don't get to express gratitude toward human staff and the staff don't receive that positive feedback. The people working there are relegated entirely to cleanup and maintenance.
I work as a server on weekends to stay sane and for....some reason, corporate had the grand idea that automated cleaning robots (it's like a roomba but a bit taller) going around would improve the guest experience.
Our floors aren't ever really filled with trash though! We're one of those 2010s-era brewpubs so it's a large, open space but these things are so awkward to navigate around and I wish so much that they would send them to the basement.
Sorry for being nosy, is it about fighting loneliness? If that's the case, is it effective / something you'd recommend?
I've been thinking about it for myself, and I worry that the physical exaustion, coping with nasty customers and lack of deep relationships on the job would make any benefit moot.
Mostly to get a few miles of steps in, honestly. Throughout high-school, undergrad and grad school I worked as a server and it's just become something that helps me stay sane (and I love the food we serve tbh).
For what it's worth, working as a server can be really helpful for loneliness though - at virtually every place I've worked, the coworkers become very close and good friends as we all commiserate together throughout the shift haha
Serving did help me a ton with getting comfortable speaking in large groups of people; was a huge benefit - being able to strike up a conversation with just about anyone, build rapport and make a connection has been infinitely helpful in my personal and professional life.
I'm sure there is a better way to frame this but when I approach a table of guests I kind of pull from a "rolodex of personalities" to instantly make them comfortable and build rapport (since it's kind of awkward on the guest side, too, if that makes sense) - it's like having hundreds of small, genuine conversations a day. Some tables can be toxic but they are quickly forgotten by another group who are incredibly fun to wait on.
Definitely recommend trying it out at a non-corporate location if you have one! I work at a Rock Bottom which is a definitely a corporate owned brand but it's a lot less suffocating than a chain like Applebees, Olive Garden or others in that vein. A local place will give you a lot of agency and autonomy on how to manage your tables - the owner at the Mexican restaurant I worked at would walk up to your table and tell them to 'get the hell out' if they were being hostile towards you
I'd argue that robo taxis are a bit different. I've had some pretty sketchy experiences with poor driving on ride shares, and some women prefer having a robo taxi to a human driven one for evening rides.
The only bad interactions I've had with restaurant staff was staff getting a bit irritated at ordering slowly.
Have you ever been to hama sushi, sushiroh or Kura sushi? These are chains where you order from a tablet and it gets delivered via belt to your seat or pick from the belt. You pay at an semiautomatic kiosk. Meeting the staff is optional
Not always. They use these robots at higher end places like better hot pots joints (like Haidilao) which are full service, the robots deliver the food from the kitchen but typically it will be unloaded by wait staff. Allows wait staff to spend less time bussing food from the kitchen, and some of these restaurants can be quite large.
> But I guess the robot companies are making money.
This isn't the first time and won't be the last time the general public had to deal with things being worse, just so companies can make money. We can't have companies not making money. Good heavens!
Pudu is a chinese company but idk how that's necessarily relevant. Bellabots are rather common in Japan and other places as well. Kerfus for example is a branded Polish bellabot that's quite famous globally.
A Vietnamese restaurant near Seattle has one of these and they are both annoying and useless. The device rolls slowing between the tables playing a repetitive tune like a popsicle truck. Meanwhile the server walks along next to it and pull the food off the tray and puts it on the table. There is no labor saving or time saving benefit. I suspect that they do it just to seem “high tech” but its not impressive.
Just got served by a similar thing to these today in Amsterdam at a trendy seafood place. I thought I wouldn't like it but it was fine. Just get the plate and click the screen "Done". Smooth and no talking to anyone. Pretty nice.
This is basically just a roomba with trays on it, right?
Are they being unloaded by the customers? The article gives the impression that it's just carrying the trays and a human waiter is unloading, which seems like just a very expensive cart.
> This is basically just a roomba with trays on it, right? Are they being unloaded by the customers?
Yes. The customers are really happy wit this. Everyone likes cute kitty robots bringing dishes to their tables where they take everything themselves. The restaurants using these usually are more expensive than average. Here in the EU, I dunno about Japan.
I think you are underestimating the long term potential of robots like this to fit into a fully automated workflow.
Imagine a tablet ordering system relaying to a fully automated cooking machine unloading into a fully automated tray carrier. These all exist, although automated cooking is mostly proof of concept for now.
I would like these if they had closed chambers that only open up when the robot arrives at the table.
I wouldn't want to eat food that was driven unprotected through the restaurant. Other customers might have dropped something onto it. Or have touched it while grabbing their own food from the robot.
I am in Portugal and have a Chinese-owned sushi place near me that uses one of these, as well as Android tablets with menus to order from the table. Not a high-end place at all.
I’ve noticed other similar restaurants using the same order system, but only a couple have robots.
They have these in CenterParcs in the UK. Bit of a novelty as a waiter still unloads the food and puts it on the table - the robot just brings it over.
I guess there is more time for waiters to actually serve customers rather than spending time going back and forwards a lot
As already said, those kind of robots are available at other places as well, so this article, albeit a bit more fancy, seems to look like one of those "Oh no! Look how wacky Japan is!" articles! :D
But I guess the robot companies are making money.