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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

restaurant robots

Just in Time for a Contactless World, Keenon Robotics has 6,000 Food Server Robots Already in Action

As restaurants across the country start to reopen, one question we’ve been asking is, assuming people will even want to go back into restaurants, how will they want to be served? Will customers want their server to wear a mask or not wear a mask? Which is less off-putting?

Another third option that may become increasingly common is having a robot server in your restaurant. Autonomous robots can shuttle food and empty dishes to and from the kitchen, they don’t get fevers and they’ll never cough anywhere near you or your food.

One company making such robots is China’s Keenon Robotics, which launched its first server robots back in 2016. Keenon’s robots use both 3D mapping and specially coded stickers mounted on ceilings to navigate. A camera pointing up on the robot sees the sticker and determines its route. The robots also feature obstacle detection and automated stopping so they don’t bump into people. Robots can be leased for $1,500 – $1,600 a month.

Other players in the space include Bear Robotics and PuduTech, but what sets Keenon apart is scale. Of the 9,000 robots Keenon has operational around the world, 6,000 are already in the hotel and restaurant industry. Simi Wang, the Director of Global Sales at Keenon Robotics, told me by phone this week that the company can produce 30,000 robots this year.

The question now is, will that be too many robots… or too little?

Keenon certainly seems to be filling its pipeline. The company has partnerships with Burger King in China, the Haidilao hot pot restaurant chain, and recently entered into an agreement with Chinese delivery service Meituan Dianping to create a new contactless restaurant.

Will there be that same demand for server robots here in the U.S.? When I spoke with Bear Robotics’ CEO last month, he said that there was definitely more inbound interest in his robots. He attributed this increased interest to customers wanting more transparency into who has touched their food. But again, we’re at the very beginning stages of restaurants coming back online, so we don’t know how much people will actually care.

Pre-COVID, the labor crunch was a big factor for restaurants considering a robotic workforce. Casual and quick service restaurants in particular had huge churn rates. With so many people out of work, and so many fewer restaurants still operational, the economics of human labor won’t be as much of an issue. The question now will just be how much people trust other people to handle their food.

LG and Woowa Bros. to Develop Food Delivery and Serving Robots

South Korean companies LG and Woowa Brothers announced today that they will work together on developing robots that deliver food to tables at restaurants as well as to your front door (hat tip to The Investor).

The companies didn’t provide many specifics, just saying that there were synergies between the two and they looked forward to making a better world where robots and humans coexist.

The move isn’t surprising given that both companies have made numerous robotic moves in parallel up to this point. Just earlier this month South Korean restaurant chain CJ Foodville started deploying LG’s CLoi ServeBots at its locations to serve food and shuttle empty dishes.

For its part Woowa Brothers, which operates Baedal Minjok, South Korea’s largest food delivery operation, launched a robot rental program for restaurants in November of last year. And last summer, Woowa partnered with UCLA to develop cooking robots. Woowa was acquired by Delivery Hero for $4 billion last December, but prior to that, Woowa’s CEO had talked openly about how delivery robots should be multi-taskers and do things like take away trash and recycling.

The announcement comes amid the backdrop of the deadly coronavirus. Cases in South Korea have spiked, and as the disease becomes a global pandemic, robots are one measure being taken to reduce human-to-human contact. As we saw early in the virus’ spread, a quarantined hotel in China used robots to serve food to stranded travelers. In fact, robots could wind up being instrumental in the contactless method of food delivery, if proper sterilization procedures can be put into place.

LG certainly isn’t alone in its food robot endeavors. Sony has a big vision for cooking robots and partnered with Carnegie Mellon University to research them. Sony also recently launched a dedicated artificial intelligence unit that would work on “gastronomy.”

All of this is to say that with the intense focus from companies like LG, Woowa, Sony and more, the world of food delivery and restaurant robots is being primed to undergo massive advancements in the coming years.

Bear Robotics Raises $32M Series A. That’s a Lot of (Robot) Pennies

Bear Robotics, maker of the Penny restaurant server robot, announced today that it has raised a $32 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Softbank with participation from LINE Ventures Corp., Lotte Group, Vela Partners, DSC, and Smilegate. Bear had previously raised $2 million from South Korea’s Woowa Bros.

Penny is an autonomous robot built to shuttle food from restaurant kitchens to tables, and carry back empty dishes. The company released the latest version of Penny last year, which we described at the time:

Penny 2.0 is more cylindrical in shape, and can sport up to three tiers of carrying surface. Not only can Penny carry more, a new swappable tray system means it can be configured to carry any combination of food, drinks or bus tub.

Bear Robotics founder John Ha got the idea for Penny after running his own restaurant and seeing the hard work that went into being a server. It’s a lot of walking and carrying for a job that doesn’t pay all that well. Ha’s aim is to let robots do the monotonous back and forth associated with food service so employees and owners can do more customer service.

Penny has yet to go into mass production or full scale deployment. The robot was being used at Ha’s restaurant for a time and at a South Korean Pizza Hut, but there hasn’t been any word on expansion from that pilot.

But Penny isn’t the only serverbot in town. At CES this month, China’s PuduTech showed off its BellaBot, which in addition to carrying dishes, also sported an LED feline face. If customers pet Bella, the cat purrs, though it also gets annoyed if customers keep it from its work.

Bear’s fundraise comes at a time when food robots are having a bit of a tough time. Zume, which used robots to help make pizzas, shuttered its pizza delivery service. Creator, the robot-centric hamburger joint, was left stranded by Softbank, which was going to invest. Cafe X shut down three of its San Francisco locations. And Miso Robotics lost both its CEO and COO last year, and instead of venture funding, is turning to equity crowdfunding to raise more capital.

With its new, bulked up warchest, Bear is better prepared to weather any automation storm, but now it has to deliver a whole bunch of meals.

PuduTech’s BellaBot Server Robot Will Make for a Feline Dining Experience

Chinese robot maker PuduTech is showing off its new restaurant robot, the BellaBot, at CES tomorrow. The autonomous bot features four trays for carrying food, avoidance capabilities and cat-like features.

We don’t mean cat-like in that it has a general antipathy towards humans and darts under sofa’s at the drop of a hat. Rather, BellaBot features a screen with a cat-like face and raised “ears” built into its design.

BellaBot is reminiscent of Bear Robotics’ (another animalized robot name) Penny. Both are made for the front of house at restaurants, sport trays for carrying food, and are dispatched to drive themselves to the customer’s table.

What makes BellaBot different is its feline inclinations. Rub the robot’s ears and its “face” will change to an appreciate expression much like a cat’s would. And, also much like a cat, if you pet it for too long, BellaBot “gets mad to remind you not to interrupt its job,” according to the press announcement.

You can see it in action in this video from PuduTech:

BellaBot Features-BellaBot for delivery food can be change place to place

At CES BellaBot will also be joined by HolaBot, another new robot from PuduTech. HolaBot is basically a busser robot, returning dirty dishes back to the kitchen for cleaning. HolaBot has a 120L enclosed cabin with three levels of trays each able to hold 20kg. HolaBot can carry 120 small plates, 39 large plates and 33 bowls in a single trip.

PuduTech’s robots are being made for restaurants in China that don’t have enough waiters. The BellaBot is actually the next generation of PuduTech’s similar PuduBot, which doesn’t have the feline fun. PuduBot is already in use in more than 2,000 restaurants around the world, according to the company.

Robots like the BellaBot and Penny are arriving at a time when more of a restaurant’s business is moving towards delivery and off-premises. There will always be restaurants to dine in, but as delivery options become more available and more popular, how much automation will the restaurant industry actually need? Robo-cats, however, will probably always have a market.