Automatic robot restaurants put a new spin on fast casual
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They're not our overlords as of this time. At these restaurants, the robots are here to serve you.
Once someone says "robot restaurant, " I first think of an LED and laser show at a Tokyo venue where remote-controlled robots dance with bikini-clad girls in a physical show that accompanies dinner.
But the reality of robot restaurants is generally way more pedestrian and low-class.
One of these is Eatsa, the San Francisco-based restaurant company that takes orders through iPads and dispenses meals through automated machines. Until now, Eatsa has been using this tech to serve up quinoa bowls to health-food fans in its own restaurants. But the company announced Friday that is actually expanding its robotic system to the fast-casual restaurant chain Wow Bao next month.
Tap on your cubby to obtain your food
At Chicago-based Wow Bao, you can already order your steamed buns via its application or an on-site kiosk. But with Eatsa's tech, you'll also be able to acquire your meal from an LED-lit cubbyhole displaying your name. Text showing on the front of the cubby, one among a larger array, will tell you whenever your order is cooking and when you can double-tap on the box to gather your food.
It's a quick turn-around for Eatsa, which only a couple weeks in the past announced the closing of five of its several restaurants across the country. The company has now changed its focus to offering automated tech as a platform to other restaurants such as Wow Bao.
A combo of man-made intelligence, personal screens, robotics and -- perhaps most crucially -- the determination of hungry customers to skip human interaction is coming at the right time to make Eatsa's shift possible. It's part of a slow creep of technology which transforming our experience of dining out, and even dining in, thanks to advances in delivery technology.
Eatsa's concept might appear exotic today, but Neil Stern, senior partner at retail consulting firm McMillan Doolittle, said we can expect to see more of this kind of tech popping up. "Does it seem sensible to hide assembly of orders and deliver via an office? " he said. "Maybe not. But Eatsa does indeed present a vision for the future that will be copied or enhanced. "
Automatic robot restaurants-Robot Restaurant china youtube
The first Eatsa-equipped Wow Bao will open in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. one particular. Using the technology, Wow Bao plans to twin its sites in 2018. It currently has seven company-owned locations, plus airport terminal, school campus, hotel and stadium franchises.
"When I actually first heard about Eatsa opening in San Francisco, I jumped on a plane to come see it, " Wow Bao President Geoff Alexander said in a statement. Alexander praised the technology as both entertaining and effective. "I knew straight away that Eatsa would be the perfect technology to integrate into our future locations. "
Do robots fit in in the kitchen?
In Eatsa and soon at Wow Bao, the automatic technology is front and center in the restaurant, serving customers and providing these an experience to go along with their takeout. In other restaurants, robots continue to be strictly consigned to your kitchen.
At Cafe X and Zume, both based in San Francisco, robots make lattes and pizzas, respectively. California startup Miso Robotics has built a kitchen assistant robot called Flippy, which from early on 2018 is expected to be grilling burgers in CaliBurger restaurants.
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