EQUIPMENT
AT NAFEM, ROBOTS SLIP MOSTLY INTO THE BACKGROUND Restaurant operators are eager to save labor and automate more tasks. But they want that automation to generate a return, rather than get attention.
A ttendees at the North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers (NAFEM) show crowded around a demonstration of a chicken wing-making robot. They listened to an employee talk about the benefits of the device as he quickly put sauced, bone-in wings into boxes. “What’s the ROI?” one person asked. The presenter didn’t have an answer, and the attendee turned around and walked away. But the story highlights the single, biggest question any operator is asking these days as technology ideas are thrown at them daily: How is this going to help me make more money? There’s nothing new about that, of course. Operators have always been focused on the returns new equipment can generate. Yet, over the past five years, restaurant operators have dealt with a pandemic, a false recovery and then a three-year period of soaring inflation, rising interest rates and now a consumer that is cutting back to adjust to those higher prices. And that means they’re less interested than ever in fancy equipment that doesn’t solve their everyday problems, such as food and labor costs, speed of service or hospitality. Operators “have real problems they have to solve today,” David Wilkinson, who recently stepped down as CEO of NCR Voyix, said at NAFEM. “We need to solve real challenges and avoid
distractions.” In many respects, the NAFEM Show demonstrated that shift. Robots were tougher to find at NAFEM this year. Oh they were there, for sure. The Middleby booth alone featured several of them. Robots made the aforementioned chicken wings and fries. Another one, in a large box, put sauce, cheese and pepperoni atop a pizza crust. Other robots were less out front than they’d been in the past, such as one that rinsed dishes that was tucked in a back corner. Yet, generally speaking, the robotics weren’t as prolific as they’d been in the recent past, when robots took center stage at many events. Robots made and served drinks. They prepared salads or made fries or scooped toppings onto soft-serve frozen yogurt. They often drew crowds of curious onlookers taking videos. And the restaurant business was seemingly eager to see them in action, particularly as operators struggled to find enough workers to service the demand inside their restaurants. But, while plenty of chains are testing robot ideas, there appears to be more skepticism about the ability for these devices to generate a return. Chili’s, the casual-dining chain, started adding robot servers into its restaurants to help address its labor challenges in 2021. But the company ditched those servers shortly after Kevin Hochman took over as CEO of parent company Brinker International,
JONATHAN MAZE
JONATHAN.MAZE@INFORMA.COM
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RESTAURANT BUSINESS APRIL 2025
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