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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

server robots

Watch LG’s Server Robot Bring Dishes to Customers at Popular Korean Restaurant in Georgia

One year ago, LG announced the debut of its new hospitality server robot, and now the Korean tech giant’s CLOi Servebot is showing up at restaurants like the Airang K in Johns Creek, Georgia. Since June 2022, four “LG CLOi ServeBot” robotic assistants from LG have been assisting wait staff by accompanying them to guests’ tables while carrying multiple dishes at once.

Initially, Arirang K had deployed two of the Servebots to help their employees but soon upgraded to four. “Everybody liked the first two so much that we upgraded to four LG ServeBots to maximize service levels and guarantee that every customer gets to see the robots in action,” said Miok Kim, general manager of Arirang K.

The LG Servebot has 11 hours of operating time and three shelves that hold up to 22 pounds. They also feature sensors and cameras that enable autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance, and recognition.

“As the CLOi Servebot is cruising down the path to deliver food to a table, if a chair is pulled out a little bit too far, It will notice the surroundings in the settings and direct to a different route,” said Brittany Marubio of LG.

If you haven’t seen a server bot in one of your favorite restaurants, chances are you will soon as the server-bot market pioneered by Bear Robotics is becoming more crowded. In addition to LG and Bear, solutions from Pudu Robotics and Keenon Robotics are also beginning to be deployed. Restaurants are using these robots to not only deal with understaffing but to take the burden off of employees and make their jobs safer.

“The main dishes that come on in our restaurant are mostly hot, and it can be dangerous,” said Taylor Robinson, a server at Arirang K. “So the LG Servebots are able to help us by bringing those dishes up for us and all we have to do is hand it right off at the table.”

You can see the LG Servebot in action in the video below:

LG ServeBot at Arirang K Restaurant

South Korea: Shinhwa Food Group to Use Woowa Bros. Dilly Plate Server Robots

The Shinhwa Food Group will be rolling out server robots at its restaurants brands in South Korea thanks to a new deal with Woowa Brothers. Aju Business Daily reported yesterday that Shinhwa has agreed to gradually introduce roughly 100 “Dilly Plate” server robots at its restaurants by the end of this year.

Dilly Plates are basically self-driving racks of trays that shuttle plates of food and empty dishes back and forth from a restaurant’s kitchen to its tables. The robots are equipped with sensors and smarts to do things like avoid obstacles and other people. Woowa debuted its first Dilly Plate (made by Bear Robotics, shown in the picture above) at a Seoul Pizza Hut back in 2018. According to the Aju Business Daily, Woowa now has five different Dilly Plate models that are deployed across 305 restaurants in South Korea. Woowa’s deal with Shinhwa is the biggest deployment agreement so far.

Interest in food robotics has accelerated since the pandemic last year. The use of a robot such as the Dilly Plate can reduce the amount of human-to-human contact in a restaurant by removing a human from the equation. Robots can also alleviate some of the hard work associated with being server by carrying heavy loads back and forth continuously without needing a break.

Woowa Brothers has been working on a number of different food robot-related initiatives. The company launched its food delivery robot program last year, and is even working with companies like Hyundai that allow those delivery robots to do things like autonomously access buildings and ride elevators. Additionally, Woowa worked with South Korean electronics giant LG and the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement to develop its server bots.

A Woowa Brothers rep told Aju Business Daily that server robots are just the beginning of the company’s automation ambitions. Other plans include developing cooking robots and packaging robots that use artificial intelligence.

Smile Robotics Makes an Autonomous Table Bussing Robot

Last year was a big one for restaurant server robots, those self-driving trays on wheels that shuttle food from the kitchen to your table and take your empty dishes back. Yes, the pandemic closed many restaurants in the U.S., but companies like Bear Robotics, Pudu Robotics, and Keenon Robotics all made news with their particular autonomous service bots.

All of those autonomous robots, however still require a human to manually transfer food to the table or pick up the dirty dishes and place them back on the robot. And as we live in a COVID world that values fewer human-to-human interactions, this is where Smile Robotics‘ robot could come in handy. The Japanese company has developed the ACUR-C, which can autonomously serve food and drinks or collect trays of dirty or empty dishes and carry them off.

You can check it out for yourself in this video Smile Robotics posted last year:

Autonomous Clear Up Robot (ACUR-C) [Smile Robotics]

That video only shows off the bussing aspect of the robot, and even that capability won’t set any speed records. A human would be able to clear those tables in a fraction of the time it takes the robot. But it’s a start, and as with all things robot, the technology is only going to improve.

The ACUR-C is fully self-driving robot. In other words, it doesn’t need ceiling or floor markers to “see” and navigate around a restaurant. It can carry multiple trays, and the “hands” of the robotic arm can be swapped out to either collect or serve items. We reached out to Smile Robotics to find out more and will update this post when we hear back.

It’s super easy to see the ACUR-C fitting into a restaurant like the Country Garden robot restaurant complex in Guangdong, China. That restaurant has robot servers and food descending from ceilings, but nothing (as far as we know) that will automatically bus the tables.

Smile Robotics, however, could be thinking a little closer to home. Japan has an aging population and is facing a resulting labor shortage. A robot table server + busser combo will undoubtedly find a lot of use there.

Video: Food Descends from the Ceiling in This Chinese Robot Restaurant

In June of this year, we wrote about a robot-run restaurant opening up in the Guangdong province of China. The Qianxi Robot Catering Group, a subsidiary of Country Garden, opened a restaurant complex featuring different robots that cooked and carried food.

One thing we didn’t know at the time was that meals would be dropped from the ceiling. At least, that appears to be what happens inside the restaurant based on a video we came across.

I should insert a few caveats here about this story. There is still a lot we don’t know yet about the video below, but it looks legit and is pretty remarkable, so we wanted to share it.

Yesterday Anthony James, CEO of Innovation and Growth at Trinity Consulting, posted a video on Linkedin showing how food travels around the inside of a robot restaurant in Guangdong, China. We don’t know who shot the video, and the restaurant in the video goes unnamed, but from the bright pink decor and pink robots, it appears to be the same restaurant we wrote about back in June.

The main reason we wanted to post this is because of the rail system that delivers orders. According to a follow up comment from James, guests place an order with one of the bright pink server robots that wheel about on the floor. The cooking robot prepares the meal, which then gets plated and sent out on a modified tray via an overhead rail system. When the meal reaches the ordering table, a tethered tray drops from the ceiling to just above the table where the customer takes the plate of food off the tray. The tray and tether then retract back up to the ceiling to go make another delivery.

You can watch the whole process here:

Interest around food robots and automation has accelerated this past year, thanks to the pandemic. Robots don’t get sick, and they also reduce the amount of human-to-human interaction involved in getting a meal from the kitchen to the customer. But robots are also fast workhorses that can operate around the clock. Country Garden’s robot restaurant in Guangdong can serve up a meal in as little as 20 seconds.

The bigger question for establishments such as this, however, is how much of an investment to make in dining room technologies. Here in the U.S., foot traffic into major QSR dining rooms is half of what it was at the beginning of the year. Would that investment be better spent automating drive-thrus and other forms of food to go? Perhaps the Chinese market will rebound differently.

If you’re a Spoon reader in Guangdong, China, do us a solid and visit the restaurant. Then leave us a comment and tell us what it’s like.

Pudu Tech Raised More than $15M as the Server Robot Space Heats Up

Pudu Technology, which makes autonomous server robots used in hospitality settings, announced yesterday a funding round of more than $15 million, according to VentureBeat.

The Shenzen, China-based Pudu makes a number of self-driving robots equipped with a rack of trays to shuttle food and drinks to and from customers inside a restaurant. Pudu introduced the BellaBot, which sports cat-like features and even makes a cute LED-face when you pet it, at this year’s CES.

Pudu’s funding comes at the right time, as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced restaurants and bars to reduce the amount of human contact during table service. Server robots like Pudu’s provide a way to reduce at least one point of human-to-human interaction while dining out.

But Pudu will also need the funding because the robot server space is getting increasingly crowded. In the VentureBeat story, Pudu claims has 2,000 customers including Sheraton and JD.com, across 20 countries. Rival Keenon Robotics, server bot company based in China, says that it has 6,000 robots in action and that it can produce 30,000 robots a year.

Over in Korea, Woowa Bros. partnered with consumer electronics giant LG to develop and expand its robot waiter program. In Spain, Macco Robotics launched its Dbot modular server robot. And here in the U.S., Bear Robotics, raised $32 million earlier this year for its Penny robot server.

All of this is to say that there are a lot of companies looking to bring robot servers to your restaurant. So much so, that as I wrote back in February, they could become a commodity:

It feels like restaurant server robots are on their way to becoming less of a novelty and will soon be a commodity. They all do the same thing — carry food. They are meant to do the grunt work so humans don’t have to. So the feature set will be the same: Take food to table > carry food without spilling > avoid humans and other obstacles along the way.

Sure, there are enhancements that can be made, or perhaps there’s a unique way to move food from the robot to the table. But there really isn’t much else for the robot to do. Server robots will become a commodity, and whichever company creates the cheapest robot that does a decent job will win.

Given the debate and debacle around re-opening restaurants here in the U.S., and restaurant workers test positive for COVID, we could see a rise in demand for restaurant robots. And it looks like there are plenty of companies ready if that demand comes.