Mildura restaurant ’employs’ robotic waiters

MILDURA is getting a taste of the future with robot waiters rolling in to serve locals diners.

Seoul Chicken and Beer co-owners John McRae and Worachat Tantibankool welcomed two robotic waiters – Bella and Kitty – to the Seoul team on Tuesday as a part of a two-day trial.

Mr McRae said both robots were programmed to know the store’s layout and therefore could move to tables and areas as directed.

He said Bella and Kitty were able to deliver food to customers, escort people to their tables and sing Happy Birthday to those celebrating their special day.

The machines are also spatially aware so they sense when people or objects are in the way and navigate around them accordingly.

“People are not sure, they think it’s just a gimmick,” Mr McRae said.

“But they actually work, they’re quite robust.”

The Bella robot, which had an interactive cat face, reacted to touch and could complain if her ears were rubbed too much by a customer.

Mr McRae said they were just fun to have in the store.

“People’s reactions were fantastic,” he said.

“The kids were blown away.”

Out of the two robots trialled, Mr McRae said they will be ordering two of the Bella machines as they are more suited to the store’s size and needs.

When the Bella machines arrive in late December, Mr McRae said he will have uniform stickers made for them and one will be a girl and one will be a boy.

“I think it becomes fun then and the kids can interact more with them.”

Mr McRae said the robots will be ’employed’ to assist the wait staff, not to replace them.

“If you’re waitressing and you’ve got your arms full coming down to the table she can be loaded up to bring the rest of the food as well.”

He also said if the waiters have a line up of people waiting to be shown to their table, Bella can escort the diners herself.

Both Bella and Kitty were from JNS Robotics, a Korean company that makes robots for all around the world.

Mr McRae said the robots have been popping up in Japan, Thailand, USA, Korea and now Melbourne.

He said Mildura will be the first regional Victorian town to ’employ’ the robots.