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Why Restaurant Automation Is on the Menu
Wall St Journal ^ | March 24, 2016 | Andy Puzder

Posted on 03/25/2016 11:17:04 AM PDT by TroutStalker

Consumer preferences, reduced technology costs and government policies that increase labor costs are driving a trend toward automation in the restaurant business. If you make something more convenient and less expensive, it tends to catch on.

As recently as the 1960s, gas-station employees would rush to fill your car’s tank, wash the windows, check the oil and put air in the tires. Telephone operators made your long-distance calls and bank tellers cashed your checks. Those jobs now are either gone or greatly diminished.

Today, we reduce jobs whenever we shop on Amazon instead of our local retail outlet, use an Uber app rather than calling a cab dispatcher, order a pizza online, use an airport kiosk to print boarding passes, or scan groceries. Each of these changes in behavior has increased convenience and reduced labor costs—and competitive businesses pass the savings to their customers.

In the restaurant business, the increasing impact of technology doesn’t mean that a robot will soon roll up to your table and say, “Hi, I’m Trudi4783. I’ll be your automated server today.” But technology can replace certain functions. Touch screens are already transforming the way food is ordered in many restaurants.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 15dollars; automation; carlsjr; minimumwage; robots
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To: Lazamataz

People with skills, and knowledge of how to do necessary things, will have jobs.


41 posted on 03/25/2016 12:01:11 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Lazamataz
What happens when there are NO JOBS AT ALL.

Visit an Indian Reservation. You'll see exactly what happens.

42 posted on 03/25/2016 12:02:17 PM PDT by NorthMountain (A plague o' both your houses.)
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To: TroutStalker

Ok, the waitress can be a robot as long as it calls me “hon”, but I want a 4 handed alien as the cook, like in Starwars.


43 posted on 03/25/2016 12:02:32 PM PDT by Idaho_Cowboy (I Samuel 8:19-20 The New Spirit of America?)
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To: central_va

Given the state of peoples genitals, it probbly would be safer.


44 posted on 03/25/2016 12:02:41 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Lazamataz
"What happens when there are NO JOBS AT ALL."

All jobs, including robot repairs, will be done by robots, and Artificial Intelligence will keep designing smarter and more efficient robots. We'll all die, but the robots will continue doing the jobs we don't have anymore, for as long as the robots last. Which might be until the end of the Earth.

45 posted on 03/25/2016 12:04:28 PM PDT by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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To: TroutStalker

The way forward is now in action in China

Phone aps for transactions call up bots that are web sites of eateries. the buyer calls up his transaction ap and then the eaterie bot menu. he selects the desired menu items anc checks out. His transaction ap knows which auto pay web payment system is in use. It pays and receipt comes to the phone

the buyer shows the phone receipt and picks up his order. Free software and good web transaction capability do the job. There is no need for expensive robot terminals. the hardware already exists!

Citation: Forbes


46 posted on 03/25/2016 12:04:31 PM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;+12, 73, ....carson is the kinder gentler trump.)
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To: Grams A

Need to have parents that instead of just giving kids their phones and money just for breathing/pouting, actually make them get jovs and work for things.

I wonder if CPS now considers that child abuse. I started working at 13.


47 posted on 03/25/2016 12:05:16 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: TroutStalker
We go to our local Applebees perhaps once a week...it's close and easy. Last night we went and they now have touchscreens on each table. They aren't online yet, but the screens did work and I could see that the customers can do everything from ordering their food to paying the bill on them.

Not a good omen for the wait staff currently working there.

48 posted on 03/25/2016 12:06:06 PM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: Secret Agent Man

No we won’t.

Because ROBOTS.


49 posted on 03/25/2016 12:15:07 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Islam is rabies. Anyone infected needs to be put down like a dog.)
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To: Lazamataz

Soooo ... you and Piper called it quits?


50 posted on 03/25/2016 12:15:56 PM PDT by AF_Blue ("America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad ass speed." - Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936)
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To: Enterprise

We are so screwed.

Because ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.


51 posted on 03/25/2016 12:16:19 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Islam is rabies. Anyone infected needs to be put down like a dog.)
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To: AF_Blue

She kept trying to investigate where I got that power armor.


52 posted on 03/25/2016 12:17:04 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Islam is rabies. Anyone infected needs to be put down like a dog.)
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To: NorthMountain
Visit an Indian Reservation. You'll see exactly what happens.

Wait, when ROBOTS, we will all open casinos?

53 posted on 03/25/2016 12:18:03 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Islam is rabies. Anyone infected needs to be put down like a dog.)
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To: Enterprise

Yes, but will there be Mexican robots to do the jobs American robots just won’t do?


54 posted on 03/25/2016 12:32:50 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: central_va

See Realdoll ...


55 posted on 03/25/2016 12:34:34 PM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: upchuck

Thanks, I may check it out (behind on my recommended reading, I admit).

I like the cover... the food doors in the background are about as I remember, except now they look dated. Back then they looked super-modern.


56 posted on 03/25/2016 12:36:23 PM PDT by Pearls Before Swine (The would-be Empress has no clothes. My eyes!)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Amazes me when visiting some homes that the teens do not even pick up after themselves, help with the cooking, set the table for dinner or load the dishwasher.

My grandsons do help with these things and when they grumble about having to load the dishwasher they get a chance to wash and dry the dishes by hand and put them away. They also know how to dust, vacuum and do their own laundry. My son tells them he is responsible for raising them so they can function independently, not be their friend. Am sure that CPS in some states would consider his treatment abusive.


57 posted on 03/25/2016 12:36:50 PM PDT by Grams A (The Sun will rise in the East in the morning and God is still on his throne.)
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To: Lazamataz
Wait, when ROBOTS, we will all open casinos?

Yes. That's all the ROBOTS will allow us to do. And the casinos will all be controlled by robots.

58 posted on 03/25/2016 12:37:03 PM PDT by NorthMountain (A plague o' both your houses.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog
"Yes, but will there be Mexican robots to do the jobs American robots just won’t do?"

Absolutely! Mainly because they will be contain electronics made by slave labor robots in China.

59 posted on 03/25/2016 12:37:34 PM PDT by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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To: NorthMountain

Oh crap.

And maybe sell cute Native American trinkets in a gift shop.


60 posted on 03/25/2016 12:38:18 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Islam is rabies. Anyone infected needs to be put down like a dog.)
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