Robot Servers? Mechanical Pizza Chefs? Automation in Restaurants

From Chippy to Holly, Flippy to Rita, and don’t forget Sippy: have you met the robots filling the roles of deep-fry chef, drink mixer, hostess, food runner, and barista?

Since the onset of Covid, many businesses in the food industry have implemented new technologies such as using QR code menus and contactless payment options to reduce direct transmission of disease.

Still, some companies have decided it’s time to take restaurants to a whole new level of technological advancement.

Certain aspects of the restaurant business create greater engineering challenges than others, of course: it’s easier to automate the basic functions of host/hostess, point of sale, and front-of-house roles than to design and maintain machines capable of cooking complex dishes and complete other back-of-house jobs.

But engineering isn’t the only consideration: there’s a kind of human cost here as well. It’s much harder to make up for the human touches lost in front-of-house automations.

Automation holds plenty of promise in restaurants and hospitality. 

Automation can lower food production times, predict consumption rates, set inventory to match, lower food waste, and ensure food safety.

For example, food production increased by 20% with the use of Flippy the robot chef at Buffalo Wild Wings, during a recent test.

About three-fourths of the industry is already using automation in not just one but actually, three or more spheres of operation, and usage is only predicted to expand.

While chain restaurants certainly have been crunching the numbers and determining just how automated technology can solve problems like labor issues, wage costs, and increasing food costs, consumers are not all on board.

Approximately a third of those polled revealed they aren’t interested in having robots prepare their food.

Still, there are some benefits to overall customer satisfaction. Automation enables vendors to offer more convenience and customization options to customers.

Ordering can be more exact when the customer can directly input their requests.

Still, human connection and creativity can’t be automated, and some problems take both.

When a machine malfunctions, such as in early prototypes of Stellar Pizza’s robotic pizza builder, humans had to intervene to clean up exploded pizzas and problem-solve which step of the process needed further monitoring and adjustments.

Messes caused by the need for small human interventions may be costly and slow down production. Even so-called fully automated restaurants require some number of humans to be on-site, whether to manage operations or provide a customer connection point.

Restaurant chain Chili’s has begun testing Rita the Robot, using it in a way that isn’t intended to replace any humans.

Instead, it’s being employed to lighten a load of hosts and servers who may be serving multiple customers. Overall, customers have reported highly positive experiences and interactions with this technology.

About half of restaurants have plans to implement new automation within the next three years.

With recent increases in online ordering and continued labor shortages, automation (at least in peripheral roles) looks to be an efficient way forward for many restaurant operators.

Still, restaurant operators must grapple with the right mix of automation and that personal human touch that robots can never replace.