Comment by DaSHacka
2 days ago
> Is this not just a gimmick? You still need people on hand to take over if the robot has an issue, I don't see how it would reduce labour costs.
"take over IF the robot has an issue" is exactly how it reduces labor costs.
2020: 10 waiters, waiting tables. You're on the hook for each of their salaries.
2030: 10 robots, one human waiter passively overseeing the cluster. You're on the hook for minor parts/occasional repair for the robots, and one person's salary.
Its not about a 100% staff elimination, but a large overhead reduction ensuring the few humans you're keeping around are more efficient overall for dollars generated in revenue versus the all-human staff before.
Plus, in certain cases, like kiosks replacing cashiers at fast food establishments, there's now one less qualification needed from employees (good social skills), increasing the pool of acceptable options you can hire where before some of those candidates would have been unsuitable for the job.
You're on the hook for more than a supervisor. Depreciation, financing, or lease payments on the robots is a big one.
And what do the robots do? Wheel the food to the table, where the customers then need to reach for the plates and pass them around? Not a great experience. Or actually set the plate in front of each diner, without dumping it, like a human waiter does? Much more sophisticated and expensive robot.
Indeed; it seems like the market niche for this would be relatively small.
It's not fast food, because customers pick up their own food from the counter there. Ditto with fast casual.
Fine dining restaurants would see huge drops in business if they tried to replace human wait staff with robots. (Unless they're already doing some kind of futuristic theming.)
So you're targeting low-end table-service restaurants...to replace their below-minimum-wage wait staff (remember, tipped minimum wage is something like $2.30 federally) with robots that don't get tips, do require a hefty up-front investment and nontrivial maintenance costs, probably a subscription with the company that sells them, and are likely to have a lot of problems especially for the early adopters—things like dropping meals, crashing into tables, crashing into customers, running over toes, purses, and small children...
This really seems like it's something that's going to work for a few gimmicks, but not in any widespread manner within the foreseeable future.
Wait staff already makes two bucks an hour in the US. It’s basically as cheap as cheap labor gets. It will take a while, and very cheap robotics, to make robot waiters worth it financially.
Without tips … on busy nights servers can make upwards of $50/hour … even more for bartenders especially youngish and female
Yes but robots don’t get tips, and the tips are from customers, not the business. It’s not an expense. It’s not like if you replace your staff with robots you can now pocket tips. Firstly because nobody would be tipping, and secondly because pocketing tips is illegal.
How about just handing out plates over the counter to the customers. But then again McDonalds have table service now so what do I know.
Okay so you go to a restaurant, who takes your order? The robot? Does it have a touchscreen like in mcdonalds were everyone has to spend 2 minutes awkwardly mashing the screen. Then the robot brings you the plates, then you have to put your own plates on the table, then how do you signal that you are ready to pay? Does every table have a button that you press to summon the robot again? Then you have to put your plates back on the robot?
Who the fuck would go to a restaurant like this.
There are already sushi restaurants like this and have been for years. You tap the items you want on an ipad that stays with the table. A robot with an LCD cat-face comes out with trays of your food and stops in front of your table. It's a novelty, big whoop. Before this, they still had the ipads for orders and the staff just delivered the food/drink.
It's not like you need a touch screen anymore though, chatbots are good enough you should be able to read off your order from a paper menu just like at a normal restaurant. Proper tooling is required to avoid the chatbot taking orders for something silly. Now, having a microphone enabled bot does bring up the question of voice recordings. Sometimes people go to restaurants to talk about sensitive subjects and don't want the whole conversation recorded and sent to a data broker.
People may perceive not having human wait staff as "cheaping out", and there are lots of status-related reasons people go out to eat. Backend is possibly more ripe for automation because people don't see it. Lots of companies building dedicated in-franchise assemblylines for submarine sandwiches or poki bowls.
Vegas has a "robot bar" where the robo arm can prepare something like 50 different cocktails. The robot is cool but the menu software was horribly put together and it crashed before I could finish putting together an order. The human attendant came over to tell me I'm not allowed to hack the robot. Bad software saved me $15, thanks.
I went to that robot bar. It failed to put any alcohol in my drink. Pathetic. Human had to step in.
because you're too poor to afford anything else? why does anyone goto mcdonalds?
it's certainly not service that hasn't been good for a decade now. it's a consistent product not abysmal not great.
if a robot could reduce the chance of me getting soggy french fries and non crispy nuggies that's fine bring in the robot.
also lol plates and tables, how long has it been since you ate fast food? people eat in their car to avoid dealing with the shouting staff,dirty floor and sticky tables.
The conversation is specifically about sit down restaurants.