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Automatic robot restaurants put a new spin on fast casual

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They're not our conspirators 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 dinner.

But the reality of robot restaurants is generally far 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 can 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 be able to accumulate your meal from an LED-lit cubbyhole exhibiting your name. Text showing up 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 accumulate your food.

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

A combo of artificial intelligence, personal screens, robotics and -- perhaps most crucially -- the determination of hungry customers to skip human interaction is coming at the 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 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 make sense to conceal assembly of orders and deliver via a cubicle? " he said. "Maybe not. But Eatsa does present a vision of the future that will be replicated or enhanced. "

Robot restaurants-hajime Robot Restaurant facebook

The first Eatsa-equipped Wow Bao will open in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. you. Using the technology, Wow Bao plans to twin its sites in 2018. It currently has several company-owned locations, plus airport, school 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 successful. "I knew straight away that Eatsa would be the perfect technology to incorporate into our future locations. "

Do robots belong in the kitchen?
For Eatsa and soon at Wow Bao, the automatic technology is front and center in the restaurant, serving customers and providing associated with an experience to go along with their takeout. In other restaurants, robots are still strictly consigned to the kitchen.

At Coffeehouse X and Zume, both based in S . fransisco, programs make lattes and pizzas, respectively. California startup Miso Robotics has built a kitchen assistant robot called Flippy, which from early on 2018 is expected to be grilling burgers in CaliBurger restaurants.


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