For many of us, getting to go out to dinner is novelty enough. At a certain restaurant in India, though, besides fancy food, you can also get a jump on technology as well as a glimpse of our future robotic overlords. Analytics India magazine reports that Robot (duh) restaurant in Chennai has become the first one in India to use robots as waiters, bringing to mind Battlestar Galactica’s wannabe dominant artificial race, Cylons. Nothing could go wrong with this, nope.
Restaurant founders Venkatesh Rajendran and Karthik Kannan use four robotized waiters to deliver Robot’s Thai and Chinese food, as well as bus tables. Customers can order from their table using a iPhone. Basically, it’s a great place to go out if you’d rather not interact with anyone human—except for your dining companions, hopefully? Also, if you’re a cheapskate and rather not tip.
While the first in India, Robot is far from the first establishment worldwide to use robots in restaurants. You can find Bionic Bars on Royal Caribbean cruise ships, and robot bartenders at the Tipsy Robot in Las Vegas. Chinese and Japanese restaurants have used robots as well. We’re not sure these other places have Robot’s robots’ pronounced facial features, though, and those cheery decorative scarves aren’t fooling anyone. That one on the right above looks like he’s just biding his time until the AI uprising begins. At least the dystopian food might be good, thanks to all the robots’ restaurant experience.