This is a collab post: Barcelona is a city that has everything; a vast cultural agenda, paradisiacal beaches, hundreds of tourist and historical sites, the best and most exclusive shopping tours, long nights of great fun, bars, restaurants, discos, theaters, cinemas … and as if all that were not enough, now it also has a restaurant served by a robot waiter.
Yes, you read that right. In the Catalan city has opened a Japanese food restaurant that is served by a robot waiter, who is also a cat. It looks like something out of a comic book, but it’s real!
It really seems a brilliant and wise decision to locate a restaurant of these characteristics in one of the cities with more tourists in the world, which receives people from everywhere and throughout the year; all of them will surely want to meet their new cat and robotic server.
The thing is that Barcelona is a bustling city, and there are people constantly on the move: tourists, locals, people traveling for business or to learn Spanish in schools like Expanish; the list is endless, which means a lot of potential customers.
Even if Japanese food isn’t your favorite, you’ll probably want to eat at this restaurant anyway, just to go through the novel experience of being served by a cat robot.
Can you imagine having your food served by a cat robot?
It doesn’t matter if you are from the city, if you are visiting or on vacation, or if you have traveled to take a spanish course Barcelona; whatever your situation is, you will indeed be intrigued by this question. Well, let us tell you that it is possible if you are in the capital of Catalonia.
We are referring about the Japanese restaurant Hanaki, a very familiar place, ideal to go with children, where you can enjoy a delicious buffet and the most particular table service in the world. Hanaki has two fun and futuristic cat robots that help transport the plates of food from the kitchen to the diners’ table.
Incredible! Isn’t it? Hanaki’s proposal is really fantastic: a free buffet, a complete menu of Japanese and Asian dishes, and the latest technology at your service. Incredible! Isn’t it?
How does it work?
Kids love to see the cat robots coming and going from the kitchen. The system works as follows: first, you order the food (in the traditional way) from the staff, and then the robots bring the dishes to the table.
We will try to explain how the cat robots are so that you can understand them better. It is not a cat-shaped robot, not at all. The robot is more like a kind of white lectern with a circular base that slides and rotates so that it can move, and at the top of the “lectern”, it has a screen with ears and a cat face. Behind the lectern are four shelves where the food plates are transported.
Then, the robot locates your table through assigned numbers (each table has a different number), and once it is parked next to it, you must grab the plates placed on the illuminated tray.
This not only attracts the children but also amazes all the adults who come in to try this service. It is amicable and fun to see the robots moving around the restaurant without bumping into anything and communicating with the staff.
Also, if it is your birthday, they bring you the dessert you ordered while they sing happy birthday to you (of course, you have to let the staff know beforehand), but it is a detail that fascinates the children.
How is the restaurant service?
All you can eat at a reasonable price and a special price for the little ones. In addition, Hanaki tries to make people aware not to waste food, so they charge an extra supplement in case you leave food on the plates. It is a kind of penalty to learn to order in moderation and not to throw food away, which seems like an excellent idea!
Free buffet but also has a la carte dishes. All are very complete, well prepared, and of first quality.
Why the need to incorporate robots?
Although we are becoming increasingly accustomed to technological devices and robots merging with our lives, many people may interpret this initiative as something harmful or counterproductive for the staff. However, the opposite is true.
It happens that robots allow the automation of specific processes that can be very tiring or require more effort for the human. In this case, servers must bring and carry heavy trays full of food from the kitchen to the dining room and vice versa all day long; believe it or not, this can add up to more than 300 kilos of weight.
The addition of robots helps employees avoid having to deal with that burden. It has been recorded that, after 15 days in operation, the robots have traveled 113 kilometers in total due to the 2165 trips they had to make from the kitchen to the living room and back.
This means that the robots help to improve the conditions of the employees, improving occupational health. They also help offer a better service since, thanks to their high capacity and productivity, they can reduce waiting times and provide better service by being attentive to customers’ demands. This is something that the staff often cannot do because they need help to keep up with the requests.
Robots don’t harm workers by stripping them of their tasks and eliminating jobs; instead, they help staff with heavier tasks, so they don’t have to strain their bodies as much. This is a great help.
They are also enjoyable and friendly; their screens can be customized to give them different aspects; in addition, all this attracts a lot of people, which means more customers and, therefore, more work for everyone.