ORLANDO, Fla. – With the pandemic, many restaurants are experiencing staff shortages right now. Customers have been seeing robots in restaurants more and more, whether it’s just for entertainment or an extra set of hands.
An Orlando restaurant is using that hardwired help on a trial basis and is finding it to be beneficial. In fact, the staff at Bosphorous Turkish Cuisine in Dr. Phillips can’t stop raving about their technological team member.
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“He never complains. He never comes in hung over or late, he’s always on time. He’s in the building ready to go. He never calls out. He doesn’t talk back, which is really an advantage,” General Manager Miki Lee said.
That’s probably because the new employee, ‘Bo,’ is a robot.
Bo is a food-runner in the newly renovated restaurant that’s recently doubled in size. Lee said it gets packed with hungry patrons at times, especially on weekends.
“He saves us a lot of trips. He’s not replacing any existing employees, he’s an add-on. He does save a lot of time for us,” Lee said.
Bo is a Servi robot created by Bear Robotics. The company is partnering with Pepsi to lease the robot to restaurants around the world.
“We’ll have one of our field operators come in to the restaurant and talk with the team, discuss workflow and start mapping the restaurant out. We’ll use the table numbers they have set. We program that into the robot and designate certain locations,” Bear Robotics Regional Sales Manager Lindsey Quintana said.
The robot reports to the kitchen where a cook loads its tiers with plates of food. With the press of a few buttons, the robot is assigned a table to serve and he’s off.
The robot usually plays a song or chime on the way to the hungry customers.
“The robot has three cameras built in and light radar, and if anything comes into its path, it will stop and pick a new path around to get to its destination,” Quintana said.
Each tier has sensors, so when the plates are removed, Bo knows the task is complete and returns to the kitchen for another run.
“He works an average of 10.5 hours per day. He’s very productive and he’s going, going, going. We only have to charge him once a day. He’s hardworking,” said Lee.
The going rate for the robot food-runner is about $2.75 an hour, based on a 12-hour day, according to Bear Robotics.
10,000 bots are leased to restaurants and businesses around the world, with about 1,000 of them currently working across the U.S.
“I don’t think they’ll ever replace humans, but they’re a great enhancement to humans. When you look at productivity, a restaurant is no different. We’ll always be the ones making the food,” Lee said. “I think it’s a combination of humans and robots to be successful.”
You may have noticed the Servi robot at a few other restaurants in Florida, as some have also been using it on a trial basis. The company said it’s been a useful tool lately to help with staffing shortages that some restaurants are facing.