If you're a fan of science fiction, you've probably seen your fair share of robots in movies—think Atlas, Wifelike, or I, Robot. In these films, robots often steal the show.
For instance, in Wifelike, humanoid robots are programmed to emulate your dead spouse. In Atlas, a humanoid robot, Harlan, goes rogue and leads a war of machines against humans.
While these robots are just the stuff of fiction, I recently stumbled upon something that brought these fantasies a little closer to reality: a robot restaurant right here in Nairobi.
Robot Café, the first-ever robot restaurant in Kenya in Kileleshwa, Nairobi has been whetting the appetite of foodies and tech enthusiasts since its launch two months ago.
In the restaurant, two robots stand in each corner of the room, and one robot stands at the kitchen counter, waiting for an order. As I settle in, I observe as Nadia, one of the robots delivers food to the table next to mine.
“Your order is ready. You are welcome.” An excited young lad gets up to pick up the meal and presses a button labeled 'exit'. “Okay, I am going back now,” Nadia says and heads back to her corner in the restaurant.
Nadia is a white femme bot (female robot). She has two trays where food is placed. Her robot colleagues are christened R24, and Claire.
A robot waiter pictured on August 14th 2024 at Robot Cafe in Kileleshwa Nairobi.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
Over the next five minutes, I observe the flurry of activities. Each table has a QR code that you scan to get the menu. You can order online or call the waiter to your table.
When your order is ready, a bell rings, alerting the waiter, who then comes to pick up the food and places it on the robot’s tray. I watch as she places the order on Nadia’s tray, goes over to another table, and picks up an iPad. She keys in a few commands, and Nadia moves, carrying the food to table 8.
As Nadia smoothly delivers the food to the table, I can't help but wonder why she's not tasked with carrying drinks, too—perhaps that's a job still reserved for human hands.
After the diners are done, the waitress comes to clear the table, this time with Nadia in tow. She carefully loads the dishes onto the robot's tray, which carries them back to the kitchen. The waitress stays behind to collect the payments.
It's fascinating to watch as humans and machines work together. It all started with a desire to bring uniqueness to the hospitality industry.
“One of the company directors is well-traveled and has seen so much in the dining space. Most restaurants can prepare good food, properly dress their staff and understand the secrets of hospitality service.
“But there needs to be something that will make you stand out. So, we picked robots,” John Kariuki, the Robot Café’s manager, tells the Nation Lifestyle. “Robots are part of the restaurant’s aesthetics.”
Working alongside humans
With the adoption of technology, naturally there is the worry that human will lose jobs, but this is not the case with Robot Cafe. The restaurant has 52 employees working alongside the robots.
“The robots are part of the waiting team and are not here to substitute them. They help make their work easier. We have to send a human waitress to take the order so that they can customise it to your liking.
We have not enabled the function to allow the robot to take orders. It is still a work in progress to get the robots to take the orders correctly without making mistakes,” says the 29-year-old.
He adds: “The waiters carry and serve your drinks because of stability issues especially when the landscape is not flat. Robots do not have the self-thinking abilities that human beings have.
The robot cannot tell that it has to tilt in a particular way. Hopefully in future, we can have robots that do more tasks. But I wouldn’t advise that we go for concepts that will replace or substitute human beings with machines.”
While Nadia, R24, and Claire cannot acknowledge their names when you call out to them, they can communicate, even informing you that you are blocking the path.
“However, they cannot hold normal conversations with a human being like the one we are having,” points out Mr Kariuki.
How it works
The femmebots are operated from a command centre.
“It could be a laptop, a phone, or a computer, as long as the gadget has the software required to control it. The robot is controlled manually or automatically,” says Mr Kariurki.
Manager at Robot Café John Kariuki during an interview on August 14th, 2024, in Kileleshwa Nairobi.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
The automated version is where the robot is controlled from the command centre and directed to a particular table. The manual control would require a remote controller to direct it and is mostly used when Robot Café has large crowds, and the tables have been moved around.
He adds that the robots operate using the AIDAS system. He simplifies the explanation by comparing it to how an airplane works.
“When a pilot is flying an airplane, they do not hold on to the 'steering wheel' all the way to, say, the US. He uses an autopilot to get to your destination as it has already been taught that route. It is the same way with the femme bots. They have already learned the outlay of the restaurant and know where each table is located.”
Worries about malfunction
If you’ve watched enough sci-fi movies, you know that they often malfunction or develop a mind of their own. So, while I sit in the restaurant, I can't help but worry: what if it goes all berserk and attacks us?
Mr Kairuki puts us at ease.
“Whoever designed the robots understood that they might malfunction, so they created an emergency button. If it is doing something it is not supposed to be, you can press the button, and it goes offline,” he says as he points to a large red button at the back of the robots.
Just then, Nadia has her path blocked by a large plant vase. It halts and only moves when its path is changed. “When the vase blocked its path, it didn’t speak because whatever was blocking it was non-human.”
Food prices
“The price of some of the items is above the market rate, but we try to incorporate everyone. We want to become a family-friendly restaurant. With Sh1,100, you can have a very nice breakfast; if you have Sh3,000, you can get a good lunch. We are not charging anyone for the robots,” Mr Kariuki emphasises.
Maintenance and updates
Being only two months in operation, the management has not had major maintenance issues.
“The only challenge we faced was in the first week we began operations, one of the robot charges blew out, and since it is not available in Nairobi, we had to use a helicopter to fly in a replacement from Nigeria,” says Mr Kariuki.
The robots are charged overnight every day so that they can run throughout the day.
A robot waiter pictured on August 14th, 2024, at Robot Cafe in Kileleshwa Nairobi.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
Acknowledging the high cost of importing the robots, John hopes that Kenya can one day make its own robots.
As I was leaving, I couldn’t help but wonder—how cool would it be if the robot could engage me in small talk about the weather before taking my order?
There goes my overactive imagination, probably fueled by one too many sci-fi movies.
