Saskatoon restaurant introduces robot server during pandemic

The restaurant industry has seen many changes over the course of the pandemic.

Yip Hong Dim Sum owner Sam Yang can attest to that. Just lately, Yang and his restaurant decided to bring in a working robot server named Gina.

Yang says Gina is fully capable of taking down orders from customers and relaying them to the kitchen staff. After the food is prepared, Gina manages to bring out the food to the tables.

“Either the customer or our waitress finishes the delivery. (They) push ‘OK’ to let the robot know the delivery is finished,” Yang told Gormley on Wednesday.

“The robot can go back to the service point and wait for another job.”

Gina has become a major hit in the restaurant as customers specifically request the robot to serve them, according to Yang.

“You can see all the customers are happy to see the robot serving,” he said.

The idea first came up to try and limit face-to-face interactions as much as possible. Customers in the store want to do their best to social distance while enjoying a meal, according to Yang.

In terms of the future outlook of the restaurant when it comes to robot servers, Yang says Gina will continue be the only robot employee alongside the other human employees.

“One robot is good enough to help the waitress,” Yang said.