Let me paint you a picture of a typical modern restaurant experience. You and your family sidle up to the hostess stand. Instead of greeting you warmly, the greeter holds up an index finger, telling you to wait. They are busy on the phone, coordinating a DoorDash delivery.
You stand there for a few minutes before this person finishes the call. Then it’s time to finally add you to the waiting list. You’re given a beeper and told it’ll go off when your table is ready. Once you are eventually seated minutes later, you still can’t interact with a friendly server. Not yet. If you’re lucky, a busser will come by with waters. If you wish to put in a drink order, you’ll get the brush-off. “Your server can get that for you when she comes by.”
Except that server doesn’t usually come by right away. They’re too busy flitting around other tables, inputting someone else’s order into a touch screen. When at last they finally do acknowledge you, it could be 15 minutes since you sat down. Let’s ask: Is this customer service?
Not the kind I grew up on. The managers I worked for at more than a dozen restaurants would have fired me for treating customers this way. And yet last week, my family had this exact experience. I’ve since come to think restaurants have adopted a doctor’s office business model. Increasingly, patrons are shuffled to different areas where they are made to wait for the privilege of being seen.
What’s mind-boggling is that, unlike doctors, servers rely on tips. And yet so many are perfectly fine disappearing after they deliver your meal so that you have to later hunt them down just to pay your bill.
It wasn’t always this way.
COVID-19 exacerbated the problem for hospitality businesses in many ways, including restaurant shutdowns and in-person dining restrictions. But perhaps the biggest challenge they faced was finding workers. As Time reported in 2021: “The labor crunch is widespread, affecting many industries that dimmed their lights during the pandemic and are now scrambling to turn them back on. From warehousing to trucking to hospitality, the shortage is rippling through the economy, causing supply-chain bottlenecks and driving up costs that are preventing many sectors from fully recovering. But it’s particularly pronounced at restaurants, which are short on chefs, washers and wait staff.”
Several years later, restaurants still struggle to source workers. “Eighty-two percent of U.S. restaurant and foodservice businesses are actively hiring, according to a recent report from marketing agency Expert Market in partnership with financial services company Toast,” explains Employee Benefit News. “However, 47% of food and beverage managers still cite staff recruitment—particularly chefs, cooks, dishwashers and cashiers—retention and training as primary challenges.”
During the pandemic, fast-food operators struggled to staff restaurants, as government incentives encouraged workers to stay home, coupled with fears of disease transmission. To counter this challenge, businesses turned to automation to fulfill the service jobs people once did. If you’ve spent any time in an airport recently you’ve probably noticed so many kiosk screens have replaced humans behind counters taking orders. Increasingly, it feels like you’re at the self-checkout line at Albertson’s inputting your purchases and paying with little to no human interaction.
Robotics will change all this.
Companies like Richtech Robotics now offer AI-powered robots to handle tasks traditionally performed by humans. I recently sat down with Matthew Casella, the company’s president, to learn about offerings like ADAM, a two-armed robot that can serve as a mixologist, barista, or Boba tea maestro. Equipped with machine vision, ADAM uses AI to interact with customers and can even offer drink recommendations. “Does a server need to go back and forth between the kitchen 20 times a meal when a robot can handle that?” Casella asked. “Not really. Instead, robots allow human servers to enhance the guest experience.”
The automation Casella describes takes me back to when I cowrite Own the Revolution: Unlock Your Artificial Intelligence Strategy to Disrupt Your Competition with AI expert Neil Sahota. As early as 2019, we interviewed medical experts who predicted a shift in doctors’ roles. Due to AI’s diagnosis abilities outstripping humans, these experts suggested AI would swallow up technical medical tasks doctors typically do like surgical procedures. This would free doctors to lean more into human-to-human caregiving, especially the essential bedside variety.
Now, in 2025, we are witnessing a similar transformation in hospitality. “The future server, waiter, waitress needn’t perform tedious drudgery like clearing tables and fetching waters. Robots can do these tasks, enabling humans to focus on the people connection,” said Casella.
There’s utility in this notion. Years ago, I had a chance to dine at Tony’s, Saint Louis’ only AAA Five Diamond restaurant. Enjoying international acclaim, its servers are seasoned professionals with decades of fine dining experience. It always impressed me how they would dutifully scrape every crumb off the table between courses and speak knowingly about every aspect of the meal from the food’s ingredients to the wine’s pedigree.
Something similarly magical happened to my wife and me the time we ventured to an absinthe speakeasy in Seattle, Washington. Inside a small room, 1/3 the size of Tony’s, we were assigned a server who doted on us all night. Ignoring everyone else, he acted as a kind of tour guide or docent. Over several hours, he devoted his full attention to educating us about the spirit, crafting imaginative concoctions for our delight.
The moment you step into that place or somewhere like Tony’s, you know you are in for a treat. Forget about waiting for the hostess to get around to acknowledging your presence. Instead, you will be pampered—catered to. Or as Casella explains, “Hospitality is built on special experiences, ones that make you feel well-taken care of. Automation is not about replacing humans in the service sector. It’s about providing a portfolio of robotics that allow businesses to deliver the value we humans crave.”
For too long friction has infected the hospitality experience. Patrons have been made to feel like intruders, not customers worthy of appreciation—or even kindness. Moving forward, robots like ADAM can enable restaurants, bars, and hotels to elevate those special experiences we seek out, the ones that make us forget the drudgery life can saddle us with.
Hospitality’s future isn’t some Blade Runner mechanical hellscape. Instead, it portends a renaissance of true service, where humans (finally) have the time and ability to create unforgettable interactions. Just as AI in medicine enhances a doctor’s ability to better care for you, so can a robotic free the next server you meet to dote on you. Imagine future encounters where both you and your human server come away from a memorable night feeling seen and heard—reminding you are flesh and blood. You are alive.
