A robot supports the service team in a restaurant in Walsrode. The German Hotel and Restaurant Association sees no danger that robots could displace human workers.
For years it has become more and more difficult to find workers in the catering industry, said Rainer Balke, managing director of the Lower Saxony hotel and restaurant association (Dehoga). “Robots cannot solve this problem because they can only be used to a limited extent, but they bring relief when it comes to transporting plates.” Balke considers it unrealistic that robots will also help with the preparation of the food at some point. Only “cooks of flesh and blood” could produce true creativity.
Robot needs help from the team
In the Walsroder restaurant, the robot “Paula” has been helping to serve the guests since the summer. “Paula” can bring drinks and food to the tables and then take the dishes back to the kitchen for washing. When loading and unloading, “Paula” needs help from a person. “‘Paula’ is a team member who doesn’t work alone, but always needs help from an employee,” said managing director Deike Eder.
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Even a robot knocks something over from time to time
Eder bought the robot because she had too few staff available due to the corona pandemic, but had to serve many guests. Just like human team members, “Paula” needed some time to familiarize herself with. You first had to save the floor plan of the restaurant and the position of the tables. And like every human service employee, “Paula” also throws something down from time to time. But that’s not your fault, says Eder. In these cases “Paula” gets jostled or tripped over a vacuum cleaner cable. The service assistant cost around 17,000 euros, and the guests almost without exception go down well. “Sometimes they order another beer and another beer just so that ‘Paula’ comes up again,” says Eder.
“Paula” is not the only service robot in Northern Germany: Her robot colleagues “Toddy” and “Bella” are at work in a restaurant in Glandorf (Osnabrück district) and in the Schleswig-Holstein Baltic Sea resort of Grömitz.
