In 2010, when Rajnikanth starrer movie “Robot” was released, where, in some scenes, the robot “Chitti” was seen cooking and serving food. It was a good fantasy movie during that time but seemed a farfetched dream in reality.
However, in today’s time, our technological advancements are feeding out our fantasies. Robots have now ventured into many industries and have led to us to a reality which we could only find in sci-fi books or movies.
Tapping into their potential, many industries have now been using Robots for various tasks. For example, automotive painting, playing the piano etc. Another much-anticipated industry, where the use of robots was awaited, was Food & Beverage.
Restaurants have now come up with an innovative concept of serving food by robots. The concept has become an instant hit all across the globe and is a real crowd-puller. According to studies, the automation potential for waiters and waitresses is 77%. In India, Robot restaurants franchise has become a rage; people are visiting these restaurants to enjoy this unreal experience. In fact, a Robot restaurant gets a minimum of 300-500 calls a day and remains booked almost every day.
Feeding the Fantasy
Globally, robot restaurants are pretty popular, especially in countries like China & Japan. In India, the concept is new and is quickly gaining pace. This can be a great advantage considering the less competition in the market.
In these restaurants, the customers can place an order with a tab placed in every table and Robots comes with their order. These Robots are also known as service robots. However, Robots haven’t replaced humans yet. The type of experience a restaurant wants to provide its customers, combined with forces like labour and real estate costs, will influence the rate at which automation replaces humans and disrupts the traditional workflow.
Many restaurants with service robots have also employed humans since the concept is new. The major reason would be the need to maintain and troubleshoot the bot when any problem occurs.
Thus, robot restaurants are not only a crowd-puller concept, but they also aren’t replacing human jobs.
Franchising the Way Forward
Starting a Robot restaurant is not as easy as it seems, in fact, it’s much more difficult than starting a normal restaurant. For starting a robot service restaurant, buying robots would be easier but the next steps are the major challenges you might face. For starters, after purchasing the robots, you will have to import the bots to India and the Customs Department did not have an HS code, a unique code assigned to each product, for assembled robots. You will be required to get special permission, to bring them here. You will also be required to undergo special training from foreign countries for installation of the bots and to maintain them.
Now, all these processes might seem tedious, but the franchise model has paved an easy way out for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to invest in the robot restaurant concept. The franchisor takes care of the training, importing of the robots etc. and you can start a restaurant without hassle within a start-up investment of INR 2 Crore.
