When the La Duni restaurant in Dallas, Texas suffered from a staff shortage, co-owner Taco Borga turned to the future: he hired robots as servers.
“I’ve had people tell me, ‘Well, they’re taking people’s jobs,'” Borga told CBS affiliate KTVT. “Guess what? No. They don’t take someone’s job because no one shows up. What they’re doing is helping those who really work.”
A restaurant in Texas recently started using robots as servers after discovering a shortage of people not accepting the jobs. In this photo, a robot serves customers on July 25, 2019 in Rapallo, Italy.
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La Duni currently has three robots. Their names are Alexcita, Panchita and Coqueta. They have cartoon faces projected onto screens and they race around the room on wheels, their bodies lined with tray shelves for carrying groceries.
They compliment the guests – sometimes they even flirt by telling people they are pretty – and sing “Happy Birthday” on appropriate occasions.
“Customers treat them like pets. They hug them, they talk to them,” Borga told the Dallas Morning News.
Borga told the newspaper that although he brought the bots to his eatery out of trouble because workers didn’t return after the pandemic, he said they are also offering savings. Each robot costs him $ 8-10 a day, Borga said. They are used in place of a hostess and two food runners who he said would normally be paying at least $ 10 an hour.
Taken together, Alexcita, Panchita, and Coqueta Borga save thousands of dollars a month.
The employees of the staff also benefit from it, said Borga. While the two server bots – Panchita and Alexcita – deliver food and drinks, a human server accompanies them to get the items off the robots’ shelves. By doing less everyday work, Borga said, a waiter can triple the number of tables he serves and pocket more tips.
Meanwhile, Coqueta acts as a robot hostess who brings the guests to the tables. This frees up a human hostess to answer phones and interact with customers.
Customers could see more robots in companies in the future. The bots at La Duni come from Texas-based American Robotech, which, according to The Dallas Morning News, has made 30 robots available to companies in the state since early 2021.
The company’s robots mostly work in restaurants and have even been used at a Pizza Hut in Plano.
The American Robotech creations can be bought or leased, and the robots only need an hour to set up before they can start working. Borga said that is 40 to 80 times faster than it would take to fully train a human.
Borga hinted to The Dallas Morning News that he is just starting the new technical staff. Next, he plans to use robots later this year to deliver groceries to households and businesses.
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