Robot waiter at Baker Street

Baker Street Café and Restaurant in Gosford is hosting a ‘trial shift’ for a new food delivery robot with a local importer.

Dexter and Wally, as named by Chef Daniel of Baker Street, started working in Gosford on Thursday, February 17 and have offered complimentary service to patrons since.

“People tend to think this thing has its own feelings,” joked local resident, Greg Coulter, importer for the new technology from China.

“They say ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’ to it as well, which we find interesting.

“We just love new technology at our company.

“We’ve got three robots here on the Central Coast that we’re testing and lovely Baker Street here and Chef Daniel is allowing us to do that.

“It’s saving labour, much the same as the dishwasher was to a ‘dish pig’ – I think they used to call them – or an automatic grilling machine or oven to a chef.

“All the waitresses that we’ve spoken to that are in restaurants around the world that are using the robots will say to you that they’ve got more time to look after the customer, to manicure the table.

“Cleaning up at the end of the night, throw all the tablecloths and the cutlery onto it, send it back, versus carrying it all back yourself.

“They’re already using it in hospitals and some hotels where because of COVID they didn’t want any human interaction, so that’s worked well.

Haakon Barry