Tip Your Robot

be the first wave in an increasingly tech-driven dining experience.

By Dennis Reynolds, as told to Shawn Shinneman

Every year, we take students from the Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership to the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. We pay attention to everything, but we ask them to take a particular interest in restaurant tech. Last year, a robot named Servi stole the show.

A year later, we have our very own Servi maneuvering through the aisles between tables at Eric’s Restaurant, a dining option at the University of Houston’s on-campus Hilton Hotel, to deliver hot food to delighted diners.

It works like this: The expeditor—restaurant lingo for the person who takes food off the counter after the chef readies and releases it— places dishes on the robot and types in the table number. Servi takes off through the restaurant, stopping for traffic as it goes, offering a polite “excuse me” here or there, and eventually meets a waiting server at its final destination. The server takes the food off the robot and presents it to the table. Servi is good for 12 hours on a four-hour charge and, so far, has yet to call in sick.

Supplementing Staff

The reaction has been astonishing. Not only is it written on customers’ faces, but it’s also apparent in the books—sales for the year are up. People want to sit down at the restaurant with the robot.

A question I’ve been getting a lot: So, you’re cutting back on labor? Well, no.

Folks in the restaurant business know all too well how difficult it is in our current market to hire good workers. The industry has been operating understaffed since before the pandemic, which, of course, accelerated the challenges. If we can make smart use of technology to lighten the load on our overburdened staff, we should.

That’s what the hospitality robot does. It supplements our labor force so they can focus on the more important aspects of their job, like serving customers and creating an enjoyable experience. They now spend more time in the dining room, where they’re more valuable. Their reaction, too, has been overwhelmingly positive. I thought some staff might be reticent, but they dove right in.

Robot service has been around for several years, but only recently has its cost fallen in line with its value. Now that we’ve reached this point, I’d expect to see more machines gradually sprouting up at restaurants. Ours happened to be perfect as an early adopter; we don’t have bumps in our flooring or steps up or down, and we rarely change our table arrangement—all variables that can give Servi fits.

Restaurant Robots’ Future

Some people in the industry have pointed out that this is a people business, one in which you can’t replace the human touch. And I don’t disagree. But I think we must augment our teams to provide the greatest level of service. If we learned anything during the pandemic, it’s that we can’t just keep doing things the same way and expect different outcomes.

It’s all the more important that we’ve invested in Servi here on campus. At Hilton College, part of our mission is to introduce students to the future of hospitality. They get to see and work with it but also actively engage with research around how customers respond. There is no question the future will include dynamic changes driven by technology. The robot-aided kitchen is coming. We’ve already seen robot burger flippers, complete with a temperature probe for perfect timing.

I would envision that our deployment of Servi will evolve and that we’ll eventually invest in more of the machines. We’re hoping to introduce it next to the ballroom, where it can swerve through guests, occasionally stopping for folks to grab an hors d’oeuvre.

The company that makes Servi, Bear Robotics, says that in future iterations, Servi will be equipped to independently navigate the halls of the Hilton, the only internationally branded hotel in the world placed inside a university hospitality program. Servi will ride elevators to the correct floors by signaling them via Bluetooth. We’ve all had the experience of calling down to the front desk, asking for something simple like extra towels or toothpaste, and being told that the staff is incredibly busy and that they’ll get to you when they can.

They’re not lying—like restaurants, hotels are feeling the strain of being understaffed. However, hotels should be able to provide a greater level of attention and care for their guests, and robots could be the answer.

Even with that addition, we’re likely still scratching the surface of all the ways robotics could affect hospitality. I am excited for that future and thrilled to have Servi leading the way.