{"id":7014,"date":"2010-12-23T01:12:15","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T01:12:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-12-23T01:12:44","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T01:12:44","slug":"Dining-with-droids-Restaurant-in-China-has-robot-waiters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=7014","title":{"rendered":"Dining with droids: Restaurant in China has robot waiters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hot-pot meals are not as famous yet as the staff that never loses its patience and never takes tips. <\/p>\n<p>A customer collects a drink from a robot waiter cycling around a restaurant in Jinan, China. <strong>Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path. The restaurant, which opened this month in Jinan in northern Shandong province, is touted as China&#8217;s first robot hot-pot eatery, where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><strong>More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists. Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path so customers can reach for dishes they want. <\/p>\n<p><\/strong>The service industry in China has not always kept up with the country&#8217;s rapid economic growth, and restaurant service can be disappointing. <strong>But customers in the Dalu restaurant praised the robots. <\/p>\n<p><\/strong<strong>&#8220;They have a better service attitude than humans,&#8221; said Li Xiaomei, 35. &#8220;Humans can be temperamental or impatient.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><\/strong><strong>The robots, Li said, &#8220;just keep working and moving round and round the restaurant all night.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>As customers enter the dimly lit restaurant, <strong>a female robot decorated with batting eyelashes greets people with an electronic &#8220;welcome.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><\/strong>During the meal, diners are entertained by a dancing and talking robot that looks like a mannequin with a dress, flapping its arms around in a stiff motion. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The restaurant&#8217;s owner, Zhang Yongpei, said he hopes to develop robots with human-like qualities that serve customers at their table and can walk up and down stairs.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><strong><em>I guess &#8220;The Stepford Wives&#8221; was more reality than fiction.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=132248481\" title=\"SOURCE\">SOURCE<\/a><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hot-pot meals are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"4","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hot-pot meals are","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":205,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":1,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":4,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}