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By Ed Avis
The robots are coming! That might sound like a nightmare, but for many Mexican restaurant owners, using a robot to tackle tasks is more like a dream solution to employment problems.
According to an el Restaurante reader survey, more than half of Mexican restaurants say that finding employees is harder now than before. And with minimum wage increases in many states, it’s no surprise that restaurants are turning to technology for help. In California, for example, the overall state minimum wage of $16 took effect January 1, and as of April, California-based fast-food workers for chains with 60 or more locations around the nation started earning at least $20 an hour.
“Initially we were using robots because we couldn’t find help,” says restaurant consultant Izzy Kharasch, owner of Hospitality Works, who has three clients who have tried robots. “But more and more of my clients are looking at robots as a real cost savings in terms of labor.”
“WAIT STAFF” ROBOTS
While robots can handle several jobs in restaurants, bringing plates of food to customers’ tables is the most common one. YouTube is full of videos of smiling robots relieving human servers of that tiresome task.
“When you carry food all day on your arm, that’s about 100 plates,” Raul Ugalde, owner of Casa Tequila Mexican Grill in Rock Hill, South Carolina, told WCNC Charlotte last July. “With this you can make the job easier.”
Casa Tequila uses BellaBot, a food runner designed by PUDO Robotics that has four shelves and a happy, cat-like face on its customer-facing screen. A human puts the plates on the shelves and tells the robot — by voice or via the touchscreen — which tables to visit. Typically, the human server notices when the robot is approaching a table and finishes the delivery by setting the plates in front of the right guests.
“She’s very entertaining, you can touch the ears and all that and it smiles, and it is more like a fluffy welcoming Bella,” Raul’s son Jesse Ugalde told the news outlet.
BellaBot is just one of many robot servers now on the market. Other highly rated models include Servi from Bear Robotics and Matradee from Rightech Robotics.
KITCHEN ROBOTS
Some robots work in kitchens, typically handling repetitive tasks such as chopping vegetables, stirring ingredients and even cooking some menu items. The Frybot from Middleby, for example, is a multi-component system that dispenses frozen items into a deep fryer, lifts the basket at the right moment, and keeps the cooked food hot.
Specific to Mexican food, last October Chipotle announced it is testing a system that automatically makes burrito bowls and salads. Developed in collaboration with kitchen automation company Hyphen, it takes its commands from orders placed in Chipotle’s app. When an order includes a bowl or salad, the robot positions the plastic container under the appropriate ingredient container, and a dispenser drops in the correct amount. The completed salad or bowl pops up through a hole in the countertop at the end of the line and a human employee puts the lid on.
“Approximately 65 percent of all Chipotle digital orders are bowls or salads, so the cobotic digital makeline has the potential to free up more time for employees to service the front makeline and deliver exceptional hospitality, while simultaneously increasing capacity for digital orders during peak periods,” a press release said. “The new digital makeline could also help enhance digital order accuracy, improving the guest experience.”
FINANCIAL ADVANTAGES
Robots can be dependable source of labor for specific tasks, and that can translate to cash savings.
“Some companies are leasing robots for $1,200 a month,” Kharasch says. “A runner position in a restaurant could cost $150 a day, so if that robot allows you to get rid of a runner, you’re talking about $4,500 a month saved. Do the math and you see that you’re getting $3,300 in savings per month. Essentially the restaurant has just added $40,000 in profits for the year.”
Ed Avis is the publisher of el Restaurante.
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