Do Robots Love Their Customers? Navigating Automation in Restaurants
Less than two months later, on a Thursday afternoon in June at the Denny’s restaurant in Long Beach, Calif., Deconnick sat at her table when that same 4-foot-tall robot rolled toward her. A bowl of soup and a fried chicken salad occupied the three-tiered trays that could have carried quite a large feast. The machine lurched to a stop and scrolled on the digital display: ‘FOOD IS HERE.’ ‘It talks!’ Deconnick said. She had always been a Denny’s regular and was intrigued by the robot when it first showed up here about three weeks ago. It was a first for her on the being served by this side. Or partly served by it. One of the waiters, following that robot. Taking the food off of the tray, he placed it on top of a plate. ‘What’s your name, robot?’ Deconnick asked. ‘Lily,’ the server answered. He’d named it himself. Deconnick, who was going to leave a 20% tip as usual said “I like Lily. She’s a good worker.’
It has been more than a decade since the dream of robo-flipped burgers and automated baristas were just waiting around the corner. However, automation is still somewhat of a novelty in restaurants (at least within the US). That is not because the robots and AI assistants cannot perform. The fact is that, by and large, the technology is available — in some cases it has been for years. Take automation far enough, and we reach a point where the cold economic calculations simply no longer make sense as labor costs soar but robots get more advanced. Meanwhile, our mushy human emotions — and what we think about these robot helpers — will determine how much they take over the running of restaurants. In the age of ghost kitchens, QR codes, and contactless delivery, restaurants are all about feels.
“Consumers have to trust that hotel staff are competent in taking care of them or solving problems, he said and ‘that’s definitely going to be human-centric kind of work.’ Michael Giebelhausen studies the intersection between technology and hospitality as a professor at Clemson University’s Wilbur O. & Ann Powers College of Business. His latest research: ”Instead of thinking about what jobs robots can do we should think about which ones consumers want robots doing.”
Not yet, and perchance puzzlingly, a good deal of the automation being introduced in America is around everything else people do—robotic bussers, machine-powered drive-thrus et al., which interrupt horizontal till types proliferating like so much kudzu. People don’t go to restaurants to be served by robots. And people want to meet with other people, not a chatbot or kiosk or mechanical arm. Hence integrating Robots successfully is not just an engineering problem (et : programmers). For example, Giebelhausen has found consumers prefer human chefs to robot ones for a variety of reasons — notably, the perception that people cook with love. In a paper he recently submitted for review, along with his co-authors — they found that such preference fell off if consumers engaged in friendly texting chatbot-banter. But ‘the flip side of that is the robot loves you,’ and in this case, ‘you heart-safe let it cook for as much love.
Whether they actually feel the love or not, restaurant employees are guided by human emotions…but in their case, it’s mostly to heal some hearts over nurse a few fear-boners. At a location in Central Florida, an observational study saw managers use robots more efficiently when they consulted staff before bringing them on. Workers were more likely to feel frustrated at restaurants where a robot simply showed up out of nowhere, without any input from employees. Even beyond the necessity of spending time on some aspects of a job, automation has been shown to induce workers into worrying for their jobs or even career full stop.
Mindy Shoss (one of three psychologists who worked on the study) told The University Of Central Florida Today Much has been made over the rise of tech replacing workers, and it is a common fear — especially when an organization does not have clarity on why thumb drives wielded by roving machines are being appointed. Some reasons to bring them in: They do heavy lifting. Bear Robotics, a U.S. company that also took part in the UCF study and whose robot was zipping around the Long Beach Denny’s on Friday night, is co-founded by chief operating officer Juan Higueros. The co-founders of Bear, he said, are from a restaurant background and designed service robots off that info. Servers were running and carrying too many, probably some wheeled trays could make it easier. Bear’s data, according to Higueros: robots schlepping thousands of pounds of food for human servers and runners. Operators respond, oh my God, we don’t have to do that anymore,’ he said. ‘Robots are very, very well-behaved when it comes to doing the kind of boring things people don’t want to do anyway.
Naturally, the concerns for backfills are anything but trivial. Twenty dollars an hour. Naffaa says this before he absolutely cannot do it any longer, but Peter Kim, the chief technology officer of Hyperallergic’s own service robot company Navia tells Scary Mommy things are different in California. While some states may never.in a major chain restaurant as they have since May 1 when that state offered a $20 minimum wage should your losing where you seriously can help: “This house was basically & we’re doing something gore insulting and finishing doom.” As for robots, he added: “There are no sick days; you’re encouraged to work at this level.” They’re 24/7, 365; you don’t have to worry about weather or traffic- they just work. On the other hand, Bear Robotics intentionally went after dining-room robots because their solution was unambiguous. The kitchen was a lot more tricky… For our own restaurant, we had four languages spoken. ‘Everyone is just packed and rushing to get stuff out..back-of-the-house, it’s a fucking war zone,’ Higueros said.
“Developing the hardware side of kitchen automation is a years-long process,” said Gennadiy Goldenshteyn, founder and managing partner at Dinemic Ventures who was formerly Yum Brands’ head of global engineering where he oversaw tech development for brands such as Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut. “It’s not that convenient — it comes with challenges [around] human safety whenever robots are in contact with humans but also skepticism from maybe franchisees or intimidation by existing workforce.” The result is that as chain restaurants look even more like sci-fi on the outside, most of their kitchens are operating about as cutting-edge much now as it did back in olden times. “Then laser projectors, of course: it’s kind of like we made a self-driving car out of a Model T,” he adds.
Last year a number of large chains tried using AI to take drive-thru orders with mixed success and the technology now seems sidelined, at least for the moment. These days, however, AI is alive and well in an Orange County Rally’s. The program seems to have a good handle on an order for chicken fingers, but it didn’t respond at all to follow-up questions. ‘Its a little help, more than before,’ said shift manager Alondra Villegas. However, Villegas said the customers were ‘split down the middle’ regarding their preference for an assistant. She meant but sometimes she leaves her customers unanswered and they become mad at her. It all goes back to this misconception that consumers see automation, particularly AI and kiosks, as robots taking over jobs…and “customers don’t participate.” Goldenshteyn predicts actually 100% of the order-taking will eventually just live with a piece of (PROVEN) hardware people already love…the phone. For all intents and purposes, the process of quickly ordering by phone via app should be pretty straightforward for most major chains already with minimal friction. And even if consumers do not believe that robots can cook with love, he said automated cooking is the future since human chefs specialize in making new dishes. Pepperoni cannot tell the difference whether it was placed by human hands or a machine, said Gorman.
Perhaps it involves an end to designing robots that are essentially more efficient humans, trundling slowly along in a drive-thru queue or bumping into one another as they make patties for your double-double. That’s a “trap,” according to food tech consultant Darian Ahler, who gives an example of designing a humanoid robot that can do something a human could easily with their arm—a coffee. If customers prefer human cooks and there are existential fears that the robot will put people out of work, being too-human a bot may defeat its own purpose. Ahler instead says automation “has to act like a toaster.” His work in developing the Autocado — an avocado-processing machine that he’s since begun selling to Chipotle. A metal box about waist high, with a chute for cooks to tip in avocados, it peels then splits and pits too. Which Ahler said is not seen as ‘steeling jobs. ‘They see it as assisting.’ While the technology in most kitchens has changed very little over time, other than what chefs cook with and how waiters place orders, a restaurant where everything’s automated — especially one that serves only one type of food— isn’t science fiction. Van Boening counts among his mentors Benson Tsai, CEO and co-creator of Stellar Pizza — an automated pizza truck — who drew inspiration from frozen pizza plants. We walk into the grocery store, and everything there is made by robots,’ he said. YouTube videos of thousands and more-fired pizzas whizzing around on a convoy belt.