If you have been to the Asian restaurant Sakura in Mont-de-Marsan in recent days, you have probably already seen it. A robot with a cat’s face goes from table to table to serve customers. He has been there since mid-August, and it must be said that he amuses the customers a lot.
When you enter the restaurant, you come face to face with this machine carrying plates of sushi. “Let me through please” she emits when you stay in her path. Elvine Ma, 16, is the daughter of the restaurant manager, Panrong Ma. Also a waitress and in charge of the bar and the cash register, she shows us how the robot works. “We select table 23 on the screen then click on “start”, she explains. There is no risk that it will enter the tables: with the sensors, it is quite secure.”
Entertainment and service assistance
The robot cat arrived at the Sakura restaurant two weeks ago. For the moment, the employees and the manager are quite satisfied. “We took this machine above all to entertain the customers and amuse the children, explains Elvine. And it’s still a little help, you still have to go behind. But it’s true that it’s harder to recruit since the Covid pandemic, so the robot is helping us a lot in the meantime. The numbers of waiters and waitresses remain and will remain the same, there is no question of laying off anyone to take only robots.”
Elvine finishes adjusting the machine, which then rushes into the room. We then follow the robot which, as expected, stops at table 23. “Your order has arrived, bon appetit!” we hear from the mouth of the robot. Désirée and Simone smile when they see him arrive with a tray full of coffee and crème brûlée, even if they are a little skeptical. “It’s practical, it changes, but to choose, I still prefer to be served by nice waiters, as long as I do”smiles Desiree.
Her friend Simone, originally from Bordeaux, agrees. “The robot is not a human but a machine, she declares. It’s still better to be served by a human.”
A machine that cost 12,000 euros
At the next table, Julien is much more enthusiastic. “I find that very good, because the waiters are still there to take orders, and the customer relationship remains the same. The robot is just there to carry the trays that the waiters no longer have to carry. They will have less back pain like that, I really see it as a service aid.”
A service aid that still costs 12,000 euros, and which does not replace a live server. The restaurant is also looking for a new waiter. “We are always looking for people because it is always difficult at the moment. So it is true that it would be an opportunity for us if we had more servers.”
Other experiments of this kind exist, notably in the Pas-de-Calais and in the Drôme. The owner of the restaurant Sakura confides that he could order another robot in the years to come.