Robot restaurants-Robot Restaurant bathroom

Automatic robot restaurants put a new spin on fast casual

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They're not our overlords just yet. 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 supper.

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

An 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 receive 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 acquire your meal from an LED-lit cubbyhole showing 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 acquire your meal.

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

A mixture of artificial intelligence, personal screens, robotics and -- perhaps most crucially -- the determination 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 encounters of dining out, and even dining in, thanks to advances in delivery tech.

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

Robot restaurants-Robot Restaurant bathroom

The first Eatsa-equipped Wow Bao will open in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. one particular. Using the technology, Incredible Bao plans to increase its sites in 2018. It currently has several company-owned locations, plus airport, university 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 successful. "I knew immediately that Eatsa would be the perfect technology to integrate into our future locations. "

Do robots belong in the kitchen?
In Eatsa and soon at Wow Bao, the robotic 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 Coffeehouse X and Zume, both based in San Francisco, programs 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.


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