Robot Restaurant Tokyo dinner-Robot restaurants

Robotic restaurants put a new spin on fast everyday

They're not our conspirators 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 sensory show that accompanies dinner.

But the reality of robot restaurants is generally far 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 provide up quinoa bowls to health-food fans in its own restaurants. But the company announced Friday that it's expanding its robotic program 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. Good results . Eatsa's tech, you'll also have the ability to acquire your meal from an LED-lit cubbyhole showing your name. Text showing on the front of the cubby, one amongst a larger array, will tell you once your order is cooking and when you can double-tap on the box to accumulate the food.

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

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

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 sound right to hide assembly of orders and deliver via a cubicle? " he said. "Maybe not. But Eatsa will present a vision of the future that will be duplicated or enhanced. "

Robot Restaurant Tokyo dinner-Robot restaurants

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

"When We 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 efficient. "I knew straight away that Eatsa would be the perfect technology to include into our future locations. "

Do robots fit in in the kitchen?
At Eatsa and soon at Wow Bao, the automatic technology is front and center in the restaurant, serving customers and providing them with an experience to go along with their takeout. In other restaurants, robots continue to be strictly consigned to your kitchen.

At Coffee shop X and Zume, both based in Bay area, robots make lattes and pizza, respectively. California startup Miso Robotics has built a kitchen assistant robot called Flippy, which from early 2018 is expected to be grilling burgers in CaliBurger restaurants.