DES MOINES, Iowa (WHO) — Labor shortages have hit the restaurant industry especially hard coming out of the pandemic but the solution may already be here: robots.
Barrel House is a restaurant in East Village in Des Moines, and a few weeks ago, they started using a robot to help waiters bring food to customers and so far it has been a hit.
The robot is named Rosie and it has sensors that it uses to navigate through the restaurant and bring food to customers.
Tony Nigro, the Manager of Barrel House, said that he could see every restaurant having a Rosie of their own in the future.
“I think that really a restaurant will only have the need for one of them but I do think that every restaurant will probably have one they’re really just food runners,” Nigro said.
Nigro said that the face-to-face experience is still important for customers.
“The robot is really only here to run food to the tables. Guests are not meant to take the food off of that they are still meant to have a server come and get it for them to still have that service provided so it doesn’t feel all animated,” Nigro said, “We do like the face-to-face communication and interaction.”
Nigro also doesn’t think that the robots are taking away any jobs. They are just a helpful addition to the workplace.
“No one’s job is being taken and we aren’t not hiring people,” Nigro said, “That’s what it’s for really just to help out the servers that we have so the food gets out as fast as possible.”
Barrel House doesn’t plan to add any more robots to their staff but they are satisfied with Rosie’s performance so far.