Denny's U-turns on major store change after only a little more than a year - as people were left con
DENNY'S has U-turned on a major change it introduced in 2021.
One location of the restaurant chain recently served customers with robot bussers bearing names like Janet, Maple, and Sunny.
The robots came equipped with three serving trays and were pre-programmed to carry meals to tables.
First introduced to solve staffing shortages in November 2021, the automated assistants did not take customers’ orders or present them with their checks - these were still jobs for servers.
Denny’s tested out the robots for over a year at its location on East Shaw Avenue in Fresno, California.
However, this restaurant has confirmed to The U.S. Sun that the robot assistants are no longer being used.
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Although the manager did not want to comment, viral videos previously showed that the robots were far from perfect servers.
One clip posted to TikTok in January showed a robot, Sunny, leaving a table before customers had the time to take all of their meals from its serving trays.
“Oh, whoa whoa whoa whoa, he left with my food!” shouted a confused diner.
The comments section of the video also stoked a lot of angry reactions from Denny’s fans.
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“Nope... I wouldn't go to a place where a robot is taking a person’s job,” wrote one.
“Yeah, I won’t go to Denny’s if they are trying to use robots to serve food. It’s better to support real people,” a second chimed in.
"This made me uncontrollably angry,” said another.
Others claimed they would give “no tip” if their food was bought out by a robot.
The U.S. Sun has contacted Denny’s for further comment.
SERVING CHANGE
On the other hand, industry experts claim that robots are actually beneficial to both customers and servers.
Robot advocates argue that these electronic assistants allow wait staff to spend more time on quality interactions with customers and therefore earn higher tips.
“The guests love it because they see their server more," Sergio Restaurant CEO Caros Gaxitua told Fox Business.
“They're able to have a better hospitality experience, manicure that table, and that's a big win for the server who's actually making more and working less."
The robots at Denny's are made by Bear Robotics, which also supplies similar equipment to Hwy55 diners, Marriott AC hotels, and Penn Entertainment casinos.
But it’s not just the hospitality industry that is introducing its customers to robot workers.
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Shoppers at BJ’s will soon see robots named Tally roaming the aisles of its 237 locations nationwide.
And to learn more about the future of shopping, discover the four ways grocery deliveries are changing to improve the customer experience.
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