EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) – In the year 223, technology is at our fingertips. There is the ability to search for anything from a device in your pocket to video chatting with friends around the world. But, did you expect robots to be working in restaurants?
At least two restaurants in the Chippewa Valley have robots on their staff, kind of. They don’t do all the jobs of a server but cracked the code on how to make their jobs easier.
At Stout Craft Co. in Menomonie and Shanghai Bistro in Eau Claire, delivering food is a bit more technical.
“We have a robot that helps us deliver, food,” Shauna Lynner, the assistant manager at Stout Craft Co. said. “We’ve had it about a year and a half.”
The robots aim to help get food to customers faster.
“We use it quite a bit,” Lynner said. “Not only for making sure food gets out hot right away, but a lot of times children, if there’s children at a table, they absolutely love the robot.”
“This way the food doesn’t set up under the lights,” Matthew Woestman, the general manager of Matthew Woestman said. “It basically goes right from the walk to the dish to the robot to the table. So, it really helps out and speeds up the process a bit.”
Just last week, the Shanghai Bistro actually upgraded their robots named Johnny 6.0 and Ava 2.0
“We are still learning on those ones, but they are actually a lot larger and they do hold a lot more capacity than the older robots that we had,” Woestman said.
While staff from both robots are helpful, don’t worry, they aren’t replacing any members of the team.
“It can’t take orders so the server will take orders, bring and come back and check in with the table,” Lynner said. “It’s basically just to make sure we get food out hot.”
Woestman shared similar sentiments.
“We are the ones that still go to the tables,” Woestman said. “We do take the orders, we do the drinks. We do all of that stuff still, this is just eliminating one part of their job.”
Woestman said the robots even helped create more jobs at the Shanghai Bistro.
“We actually have been busier so we do need more people to work,” Woestman said. “Somebody actually putting food on the robot, we have to have an expo back there that their job now is to put food on the robot and make sure it goes out to the tables.”
The robots and staff trying to make sure customers enjoy every mega-bite of their meal.
Both Woestman and Lynner said they’ve gotten mixed reviews on the robots, some loving them, others preferring a human server. Either way, the robots aren’t expected to be getting rusty anytime soon.
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