Robot Restaurant opens in china-Automatic robot restaurants

Robot restaurants put a new spin on fast casual

They're not our overlords as of this time. At these restaurants, the robots are here to serve you.
When 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 sensory show that accompanies dinner.

But the reality of robot restaurants is generally much more pedestrian and low-class.

One example 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 provide up quinoa bowls to health-food fans in its own restaurants. But the company announced Friday that it's expanding its robotic system to the fast-casual restaurant chain Wow Bao next month.

Tap on your cubby to get 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 manage to gather your meal from an LED-lit cubbyhole showing your name. Text showing up on the front of the cubby, one among a larger array, will tell you whenever your order is cooking so when you can double-tap on the box to gather your food.

It's a quick transformation for Eatsa, which only a couple weeks ago announced the closing of five of its seven restaurants across the country. The company has switched its focus to offering automated tech as a platform to other restaurants such as Wow Bao.

A blend of man-made intelligence, personal screens, robotics and -- perhaps most crucially -- the readiness of hungry customers to skip human interaction is coming at the moment to make Eatsa's shift possible. It's part of the sluggish creep of technology that's transforming our experience of dining out, and even dining in, thanks to advances in delivery technology.

Eatsa's concept might seem to be 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 present a vision for the future that will be replicated or enhanced. "

Robot Restaurant opens in china-Automatic robot restaurants

The first Eatsa-equipped Wow Bao will open in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. 1. Using the technology, Wow Bao plans to double its sites in 2018. It currently has seven company-owned locations, plus airport, school campus, hotel and stadium franchises.

"When I 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 immediately that Eatsa would be the perfect technology to include into our future locations. "

Do robots belong in the kitchen?
At Eatsa and soon at Wow Bao, the robotic technology is front and center in the restaurant, serving customers and providing associated with an experience to go along with their takeout. In other restaurants, robots remain strictly consigned to the kitchen.

At Cafe X and Zume, both based in Bay area, programs 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.