To solve the shortage of staff, a restaurant in the US bought 3 robots to serve customers.
“You here. Follow me to the table!”, the robot Peanut happily welcomed Vicki and Troy Charlton to the restaurant. While playing melodious music, the 1.2 m tall robot led 2 guests to the dining table at Mr. Q, a seafood restaurant in south Florida (USA).
After Charlton ordered the human staff, the second robot delivered the finished food to the customer. The food is neatly arranged on the tray. “Thank you,” Vicki Charlton said. The robot replied “Nothing”. 
Restaurant Mr. Q in South Florida (USA) uses robots to serve customers. Photo: Sun-Sentinel. For the past several weeks, Joy Wang, the owner of Mr. Q has difficulty recruiting waiters on weekends, when the number of visitors is too large. “A former employee once told me that they would rather stay home and get unemployment benefits,” Wang said. Due to not recruiting enough staff, Wang decided to use robots to assist in serving the restaurant. Last week, she bought three service robots for $30,000. According to the Sun-Sentinel , Mr. Q is one of the first restaurants in South Florida to use robots to serve customers. This trend also extends to Miami. In late March, REEF, an online restaurant service company, partnered with startup Cartken to produce a local food delivery robot. Matt Lindenberger, chief technology officer of REEF, said the electric robot can deliver goods in the downtown Miami area in 30 minutes. According to Lindenberger, the robots are the size of hot dog carts, which can climb up or down sidewalks, automatically avoiding cars and pedestrians. 
In addition to the reception robot, Mr. Q also equips a robot to serve food. Photo: Sun-Sentinel. “Applying service robots helps to save staff costs. Instead of using 5 people to deliver 5 orders, I can use 3 robots and a human,” Lindenberger said. In California, fast-food chain Chik-Fil-A also plans to use semi-autonomous robots for delivery, while Domino’s will deliver pizza by robot car in Houston. An employee at Mr. Q thinks it’s reasonable to apply robots because they don’t carry disease-causing viruses, don’t cough on food, don’t rest (unless they need to recharge). Instead, they are always happy, only interested in work. Michael Salcedo, waiter at Mr. Q said the older guests enjoyed Peanut. It also takes care of taking orders if another employee is busy. When bringing guests to the table, Peanut’s touch screen will display the menu. On special occasions, the robot can even sing “Happy Birthday” or “Merry Christmas” in four languages. 
Older diners enjoy being served by robots. Photo: Sun-Sentinel. Unlike Peanut, the restaurant’s two remaining service robots are unnamed. However, Salcedo prefers to call them Beavis and Butthead, because they often bump into each other in restaurants. Shaheen Maleki, restaurant manager Mr. Q said the robots are sometimes quite noisy. “There was a time when Peanut was about to run out of battery. It says ‘I have to go back. I had to go back by myself’, while we couldn’t find the volume button (to adjust the robot’s speakers)”, Maleki said that the service robot both attracts customers and helps the restaurant, but can also be annoying at times. . According to Maleki, many customers film the robot and then post it on the Internet to help the restaurant become more known. With large dining tables, a robot can serve food in one go, the job sometimes requires 3-4 people, or one person has to move many times. Various types of unique robots at the technology fair in Thailand Amazing robotic assistants helping with directions and serving food and medical robots were showcased at a recent tech fair in Thailand.
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