COLUMBIA, S.C. – The restaurants on Main Street in Columbia are known for a variety of qualities. Now, a couple businesses can add robots to that list.
The Grand on Main and The Good Life Café “hired” robots to add to their serving staffs a little under two years ago. Since then, both restaurants have seen customers come in every day just to get a glimpse of the bots in action.
Load, Push, Serve
The robots, all known as “Ms. Bella Bot,” will direct themselves to any table that you assign her. All you must do is load one of her four serving trays, press a few buttons on her face screen, and watch her in action.
Ms. Bella Bot stops for any guest that may be in her way, and even waits for someone to open a door if need be. With a please and a thank you, she’s ready to serve.
“The future is here!” Russell Davis said. Davis regularly goes to The Grand with coworkers.
Humans or Robots?
“They [customers] love it, they’re like, ‘we heard that you deliver your food on a robot and we just wanna see it!’ And I’m like well, you’ll be able to,” Kaitlyn Ewing said. Ewing has been serving at The Grand for over a year.
The general manager at The Grand has noticed a difference since the robot’s implementation as well, “It’s kinda like that asset you can count on always being there,” Jake Cooper said. He has been working with the company for over three years.
“It always walks around with a smile on its face! It’s never upset or angry!” customer, Russell Davis said.
It takes roughly six-dollars to charge each bot every week, much cheaper than paying human hands minimum wage
Despite how good Ms. Bella Bot may be at her job, Cooper doesn’t see a complete robot takeover happening anytime soon.
“The service industry is all about people. You’re never gonna be able to replace them,” Cooper said.
Or so he can only hope.
