Can Sex Sell Robot Restaurant Shinjuku?

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 physical show that accompanies meal.

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

One 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 serve up quinoa bowls to health-food fans in the own restaurants. But the company announced Friday that it's expanding its robotic program to the fast-casual restaurant chain Wow Bao next month.

Tap on your cubby to get your food

At Chicago-based Wow Bao, you can already order your steamed buns via its software or an on-site kiosk. But with Eatsa's tech, you'll also have the ability to acquire your meal from an LED-lit cubbyhole exhibiting your name. Text showing on the front of the cubby, one amid a larger array, will tell you once your order is cooking so when you can double-tap on the box to accumulate the food.

It's a quick turnaround for Eatsa, which only a couple weeks in the past 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 unnatural intelligence, personal screens, robotics and -- perhaps most crucially -- the willingness of hungry customers to skip human interaction is coming at the right moment to make Eatsa's shift possible. It's part of a slow creep of technology which transforming our encounters of dining out, and even dining in, thanks to advances in delivery tech.

Can Sex Sell Robot Restaurant Shinjuku?

The first Eatsa-equipped Wow Bao will open in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. 1. Using the technology, Incredible Bao plans to increase its sites in 2018. It currently has seven company-owned locations, plus airport, school campus, hotel and stadium franchises.

"When I 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 instantly that Eatsa would be the perfect technology to integrate into our future locations. "

Do robots belong in the kitchen?
At Eatsa and soon at Wow Bao, the robotic technology is front and center in the restaurant, serving customers and providing them with an experience to go along with their takeout. In other restaurants, robots remain strictly consigned to your kitchen.

At Coffeehouse X and Zume, both based in Bay area, automated 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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