Robobar Fights Bartending Cost Efficacy Crimes
The Robobar automatically pours cocktails, beer, wine, juices, and soft drinks. It was featured prominently at the Nexfest consumer electronics expo at the Javits center in NYC today. Reader Chris P. reports that at the end of the product line, a Motoman worker was manually stirring the soft drinks with a wooden stick. When asked why, the man replied, "the water pressure isn't so good here, so the coke syrup and the co2 aren't mixing that well today." Additionally, as the Robobar made drinks, it made sure to tell onlookers, "Robobar only costs 30 cents an hour to operate!"
The only question is, do you have to tip it?
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Comments:
YTS, for those things you check at the dooor. The real problem I see is that most of the time the bar is pretty empty. A good bartender keeps his customers talking and in the bar so they order more. Without a "friendly" ear to listen to the person's problems, they'll drink less.
Considering there are portions of the video that have been removed, I am going to estimate that this Robot Bartender could produce around 30-35 drinks an hour. Is there anything more ridiculous than that? A good bartender could literally serve hundreds of patrons in an hour.
I can see it being good for things like conventions, where the bar isn't central or usually too busy. Won't replace human bartenders, and I wouldn't assume that it was meant to except that they put a godsdamned tuxedo on it.
Yikes.
Gotta be good for kiosks only. A good bartender can upsell more than he costs to employ.
Kiosks is one example. With technology integrated into venue design one might also be able to create unique dining and entertainment situations where this woudl be useful where waitstaff is impractical or inappropriate.
Imagine a venue where teh preimeter seating was private booths and the service was provided by one of these robots coasting on a perimeter track. I know that I've been in places many times where the waitstaff took so long to bring drink orders up that it certainly cut into their profitability. Additionaly such a system would mean that conversation is only interrupted when the participants want to be interrupted, instead of when the waitstaff happens by.
I guess what I'm saying is that this presents certain design opportunities that are a departure from the current models.
And anybody who claims that this would be the first bartender in history not to call in sick on the worst day ever obviously hasn't owned anything more complicated than a ball point pen. :)
I love that Hitchcock sees people drinking less as a problem :)
Well. At least if they rise against us they can't move that fast. But how are we checking for things like minors, people that shouldn't be drinking?