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Robot restaurants put a new spin on fast everyday

They're not our conspirtors as of this time. At these restaurants, the robots are here to serve you.
When ever 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 meal.

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 it's 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 manage to gather your meal from an LED-lit cubbyhole showing your name. Text showing on the front of the cubby, one amid a larger array, will tell you whenever your order is cooking and once you can double-tap on the box to accumulate the food.

It's a quick transformation for Eatsa, which only a couple weeks back announced the closing of five of its eight restaurants across the country. The company has turned 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 readiness of hungry customers to skip human interaction is coming at the right moment to make Eatsa's shift possible. It's part of the gradual creep of technology that is transforming our experience of dining out, and even dining in, thanks to advances in delivery technical.

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 cover assembly of orders and deliver via a cubicle? " he said. "Maybe not. But Eatsa will present a vision of the future that will be replicated or enhanced. "

Robot Restaurant Tokyo entrance fee-Robot restaurants

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 eight company-owned locations, plus air-port, college or 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 effective. "I knew immediately that Eatsa would be the perfect technology to include into our future locations. "

Do robots fit in in the kitchen?
In Eatsa and soon at Wow Bao, the robotic 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 remain strictly consigned to the kitchen.

At Coffee shop 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 2018 is expected to be grilling burgers in CaliBurger restaurants.