 and welcome to Restaurants Hawaii on Think Tech Hawaii. I am your host, Cheryl Matsuoka, the Executive Director of the Hawaii Restaurant Association. And today, we're discussing a much needed solution to our employee shortage. US robotic services has a proven solution to help our restaurants, eateries, and businesses remain profitable while continuing to provide excellent customer service. All the customer service that our guests and patrons are accustomed to. According to experts, our employee shortage is going to last for decades. Well, US robotic services has a solution. The solution, utilizing technology. I suggest that you allow US robotic services, a Hawaii Restaurant Association member, to show you how your company will benefit and increase your profits today. So today's segment's title is Robots Within the Hospitality Industry, the Rise of Service Robots. At this time, I have two guests that I'd like to introduce. The first guest is Ted Davenport, CEO of US robotic service. Hey, Ted. Hey, how you doing, Cheryl? Thank you for having me. You're very welcome. And my second guest is Gary Dickman. Gary is the Assistant Manager of Ruby Tuesday Moana Law. Hi, Gary. Hi, Cheryl. How's it going? Thank you for having me. It's going to be fun. Great. Thank you for joining us. So, Ted, the employee shortage, every business, especially the food service industry, is really having an issue with employee shortages. So let's share with our viewers what are the benefits of having US robotic services your hospitality robots in our food service industry eateries, restaurants and businesses? Yeah, Cheryl. You know, years ago, I saw these robots operating in Asia and a chain called MK out of Thailand had 250 units. And labor is cheap there. And they're not short on labor, but they were short on service. So I went to go to a few units with some of their general managers and their operational manager to find out what's the benefits of these robots to help in my restaurant for Ruby Tuesday's Giro Kaku. And because I, you know, witness one, we're lacking employees, too, is how many times employees walking back and forth to the kitchen? You know, how much time are they spending walking back and forth carrying dishes and carrying plates? Watching how many dishes are sitting on your table for 30 minutes, 20 minutes, because there's nobody to pick them up. Now, in the old days, you had a bus boy. That was used to be the first job. You went to high school, you're a bus boy. I mean, I grew up doing bus books. Well, that job is gone. So the waiters and waitresses are working harder. Problem is they get less tables. This actually is not to replace your employees. This is to enhance your service, to actually have your waiters and waitresses out there serving, selling, and let those robots do the hard work. Let them take the dishes. Let them bring the food up. Utilize them as much as you can. And I think Gary can explain a little bit more because he's there operationally, and he knows how they've actually helped an expedited service. So that's kind of, you know, in a nutshell. How I got involved. Well, that's awesome. I'm so excited to tell all of our members about this awesome service that you have. And I'm gonna invite everyone at the end of this call to contact me if they'd like to contact Ted also to go to Ruby Tuesday, Moana Loa and see him in action. I'm planning to go out there just to see it in action, Ted. I think it'll be fun, right? So Gary, go ahead Ted. No, no, no, yeah. I mean, it'd be great. I mean, you give me a gear of coffee and a couple of you can see it. You can see how it's helped. A table, it usually takes five trips to the disk pit when a robot takes one and leaves the waiter up at the waiting table. That table turns in five minutes, not 15 minutes. So witnessing that, so you have to look at the big picture as a restaurant owner. What, how much time is being wasted at the expense of you paying hourly? That's the key. So. Love it, Ted. So Gary, I remember when the food service employees were concerned that robots would take their jobs and there was pushback, right? No, no, we don't want robots. But according to the Guinness Book of World Records I researched it before this call. The first waitstaff robots were introduced in 1983. That's almost 40 years ago, Ted. So I'm assuring that the technology has really enhanced. So Gary, do robots take away our food service employees jobs? That's the first question. Not at all. And that was a concern immediately when we first got them but the employees who thought that are now very happy that they are there but they're not taking anybody's job away. Great. Share with our viewers, Gary. What exactly, which job, I'm calling them the Ruby robots. So which exactly, which jobs does your Ruby robots or what are they doing in your Ruby Tuesdays? They're doing a lot of things and they make first of all my job easier. If I'm on the expo line and handing out the food and sorting it out, instead of having it sit there and wait for the servers to come back and taking up a lot of space, I can load the robot up. As soon as I see the server come back I let them know that I'm sending it out. And if they're not back there with me I can send it out on the floor because the servers are out on the floor. It does save them time from walking back and forth to get the food. It saves me time from trying to sort it out or at times me bringing out the food and leaving the other food behind. So it saves time on my end. It saves time on the server's end. And as Ted said also the fact that they're bringing back dishes that's something that I didn't think they would be right on board with immediately those employees but they're utilizing that a lot. Every time a robot goes out on the floor pretty much they're bringing back dishes off the floor right through the dishwasher area. It saves a lot of time for everybody and the customers love it. They take videos of the robots so many days. Every day they're taking videos of it. Some customers have come in and said they're coming in just to see the robots. Their kids wanted to see them and it's a win-win for everybody. Exactly, that's what I would come in just to see it. I'm a technology girl. Ted knows me. I have a Roomba vacuuming my house. I have a Roomba mopper mopping my house because Ted, you know I don't have time to be like vacuuming and mopping. These robots is the solution to our restaurants and eateries. So other than taking the food and the meals to the tables and taking the dishes back to the dishwasher what else are the robots doing? Well they're not calling in sick and they're not on medical. That's two things. Like I said, they're very smart. When they go down to 10% in power which they actually last 12 hours. They actually park themselves, they charge themselves. You don't have to feed them. You just give them electricity. I guess that's feeding them. But that's all. It's really simple, smart, very easy to run for a restaurant. Very easy to set up. The robots nowadays are laser. So we come in and we train the robot the whole restaurant. They can see everything from a person to a corner, to a chair, to you name it. So it will not hit nobody, it won't hit your chairs. Just they're terrific. And if you want they can play any kind of music you want or even talk to you. And if you, like for instance in Alaska there was a restaurant called Jimmy's. He was only open four days because he couldn't find people no matter what. And he had a lot of takeout because he's Chinese in Japanese restaurant and he had only one person up front. So now he's open six days. The robots are bringing the food out, bringing the takeout out. And now Jimmy can stay out and greet his customers, greet his customers, sit his customers. So he's back open six days a week and he didn't have to hire any employees because Alaska's very difficult. So that solution was there for him and he really likes it. He texts me all the time how happy he is. So I think in time people will realize the benefits for both customer and employee and restaurant owner. I agree 100%. If I am sitting in a restaurant and I can get my food quicker where the robot just brings it from the kitchen directly to me, I'd be so happy. And as you mentioned, to help the restaurant reduce expenses these robots are taking the dishes back to the kitchen. I mean, I can just imagine because your Ruby Tuesday morning law is so large, how many footsteps the employees are now saving versus taking food and dishes back and forth from the kitchen. It makes total sense, Ted. On top of that, the benefit because as you know, many of our members are restaurant tours and restaurant owners. These Ruby robots are not gonna call out sick. They're not gonna write, Ted, come in late. Yeah, and like Gary running the restaurant, when he's short, these two will really make up for the time. They're gonna work a little bit harder, you know? But your waiters can take on more tables, make more tips and their job's not gotten harder. Their job's gotten easier. So it's really, that makes sense, a win-win for everyone. So right now the robots are taking the food to the tables, taking the dishes back to the kitchen. What else are the robots doing? You know, that's pretty much their main job is to be a busboy and a runner. So really that's what they're programmed to do and that's what, that's all we want them to do. They will, like I said, we could put on music, we could put on Goodbye Ruby Tuesdays if you want to sing into the customers. They could say, it could talk to the customers. They could tell you, your food is here, which your tray number one and tray number two, please take your hot food. And we could do that kind of, we could turn it like into a waiter if you need to be because some people are really, really short or somebody's running a smaller restaurant once that to happen. But yeah, we use ours more for busing. You know, it's busing and running. Nice, so Gary, how many robots do you have over there at Ruby Tuesday? We have two. We name them Kiki and Keenan. We have names for them. And what Ted was talking to the customers is actually pretty interesting because I always, sometimes we'll take food out and follow the robot. And the robot after the food is given to the customers, we'll say, enjoy your meal. And I watched the customers faces their expression. It means something to them. They really appreciate the brief conversation they have. The robot will be moving across and say, here comes the robot, pretty and smart. And little things like that, the customers are just captivated by it. And it also is great the way they are programmed. They will not bump into anything as Ted said. If there's a person maybe walking or if a chair is sticking out a little bit, they will stop. And so there's no problem. There's no accidents or spillage or anything like that. It just works out perfectly for everybody. I love it because they probably have sensors in them, right? That can sense somebody walking in front of them or a chair that was moved out of place that's normally not within their path. This is fascinating, Ted. I just love it. So we also want to talk about, as you know, you're saying restaurants, right? Hotels, hospitals and nursing homes and other businesses. So how do they get these robots, Ted? Well, they can order to us, U.S. robotic services. We represent the Kenan brand. We have a few other brands that we'll be representing that we'll be doing more of a, we'd say called sweeping cleaning, mopping type robots that a lot of airports and hotels use. There's a fact there's a few hotels here that use those. So we'll be actually adding on a few more brands, and they can come to us and, you know, we do demonstrations, you know, they can go to Ruby Tuesdays, I can go to Giro Cochrane and see that for themselves. But yeah, we'll help them set up what they need. Nice. So how long does it take from the time I place an order for a robot? How long does it take to get a robot? Well, if we have them in stock, we're stocking them in California. We're gonna start stocking here some. And if it's, if it's stocked here, it can be days. If it's in California, it'll probably take 10 days to get here. And then a setup is about a day. So it's very simple. So the setup must be like the floor mapping and things like that. Exactly. We take it and floor map it, make sure the system's upgraded. You know, for instance, the new upgrades coming out, just like your iPhone, you know, the upgrade. You can, you'll be, upgrade, just press a button and it'll upgrade. There's gonna be a new system called the Bell, which, that if your waiter has an iPhone or a Samsung, it can, you can download the app. They'll ring that. You can ring them. You can send the robot by your app. So if you need table 101, 102, 103, Clay, you can send it to 101, 102, 103. It'll come out, you know. So you can start talking to the robot with your phone. That's gonna happen soon. I don't know when, but it will be soon. They're working on that. I love it. But like you said, everybody always gets new firmware updates, right? Just enhanced services. So I can't imagine, right? All the enhancements that's gonna happen with these robots. It's awesome. You also mentioned in 2023, you'll have room service available, a room service robots available. So can you share us exactly how your room service robots will work and how they will actually function in a hotel? Yeah. These are robots that have four compartments that are in individual compartments or they can make it two or three. Let's say you order, you're in room 1914. You make your order to the restaurant downstairs. They'll load up the robot. The robot will go to the elevator, call the elevator to room 19, come to room 1914 and will call your phone. And then, you know, the robot will send the robot. So you'll be given a code to open up whatever, it could be whatever compartment or it could be all compartments. And then you'll press okay and it goes right back to the kitchen. For robots that are, let's say, in embassy suites, and a lot of that's gonna be probably Uber Eats and a lot of the delivery. If the restaurant's not open, it can deliver your food as it comes in. So it's not sitting there waiting. You're not in your pajamas. You have to go downstairs. So like I said, these are more for services. Really to enhance the service for the customers. So that we are working with Otis and all these elevator companies now to integrate the cloud system. So that takes a little time, but it's done in Asia and the Hyatt's are using them. The Westons are using them. A lot of people are using them. Only in America, we have not started. So we're gonna be starting hopefully in Fresno this week. Nice, Ted. And as we mentioned, the whole underline is with our employee shortage, with us strapping for employees, it's been so difficult. This is a huge solution, Ted, to help not only restaurants and like I said, hotels, hospitals, nursing homes and other businesses. People just need to think, what is the repetition? What is it that their employees, I mean, even in a warehouse, going to pull a product, send it to the will call, pull another product, send it to the will call, even in warehouses, I can totally see this application working, Ted. Oh yeah, I mean, anywhere anybody has big mail rooms, hospitals need deliveries between floors, food delivery, nursing homes that people just said, you look at time of people walking and that's what you're trying to say. It's just a saving time, saving money. That's all it's about. And for us, as a solution, we teach the solution. Me owning restaurants, I understand it. That's how I got involved with this. But now I'm understanding the waste of time and the lack of employees. That's where you have, you can sit down and go, ah, it's just going to get better. Well, it's not going to get better unless you find a solution. So that was it. Doing this makes Gary's job so much easier. My employees job so much easier and it makes a customer so much happier. So that was the solution. And I totally agree. It's like I mentioned, in my house, when you come to my house, I've got the Roomba and the Map Mopper and everything electronic because I don't have time to be vacuuming the house, but I just turn it on when I'm washing dishes and it just finishes by the time I'm finished washing the dishes. So I love it. So the burning question that I know many of the restaurant tours will have, Ted, is what is the cost of a robot and do you have leasing programs? Yeah, the cost is, the first robot is six, we'll call it the W5, which you'll see at Ruby Tuesdays and at Kirokaku. Those are, well, 16,500 for the first one. Then it goes down to 15,500 and then it's 15 to the third one. At the fourth one, it's 15,000 per. You can lease them and we're actually setting that up now with the leasing company. So it's just like leasing an employee. But yeah, you can lease them because somebody come out with $30,000, $40,000, maybe they don't have that kind of money. So the leasing program might work best for them. I agree and leasing makes sense because as we mentioned, right? You don't have an employee. So it's that when you look at the salary that you would have paid an employee along with the medical and all the benefits and the leasing amount for a robot. Oh my goodness, it just makes sense. It absolutely does. It's gonna put more money in the restaurant through his pocket. And that's the key, that's what we're trying to do. I mean, we're dying breed. We don't, like I said, find solutions. You know, don't think it's just gonna come out of a cloud. It doesn't. So we're all gonna work together. And I thought this would be something I could contribute to the rest of, not only in Hawaii, but all over. And started just with Hawaii in mind, but we've been getting calls from everywhere. Florida, New York, Chicago, Texas. We're headed up to Fresno to a casino. And yeah, I mean, it's just, it's amazing what people now that can get it, they understand that you need solutions. So. I love it. And especially like you said, if anybody is doing the same walking, you know, that same walking trail every day, right? Think about your employees that keep going back and forth from warehouse to front desk or nurses from the nurses station to wherever they have to go to the supply room. I mean, just constantly, it's gonna save so much time and it's gonna save your employees, right? So that makes total sense. That's true. Think about people and everybody's experiences. You go and you sit down, you get a drink from the waiter. And then he takes off and you don't see him for 20 minutes. And you know, you drink, you want another beer or something, you know, you're thirsty, you're just want another drink and you're waiting and waiting and waiting because there's nobody out there to get their attention. That's what this keeps, it keeps your waiters, you know, right there in the restaurant, not in the back. So if you really, if a restaurant wants to go look how much people are walking back and forth, how much wasted time that is and how much their customer is not giving the experience of being able to order more. You can watch your sales, well, watch your drinks go up, it makes a difference. I love it. I love it. So Gary, is there any other comments that you would want to make about how these robots are working, he is working in the Ruby Tuesday and Juana Law? Yeah, I'll give an example of last night. Last night we had reservations of 15, 15 and 20 and they all kind of overlapped. We had a walk-in table of 15s. We had a lot of orders coming out at once. I could load up the robot and this was one of them going out an hour of the night and it went out to the door, the server met them there and it just saved so much time. They were able to get the customers, were able to get their food right away while it's still hot and save the server time instead of coming back into the kitchen and sorting it out. It's already sorted out on the robot in order to the split, we have the order split. So it saves the server time. It saves the meat time as I said because I don't have to bring it out. If it's sitting there, customers are getting it right away. It clears up space, it saves time. Again, it's just a win-win. And last night it really proved useful. The other good thing about it is Ted would say about the charging. We started off at 100%, maybe 9.30 in the morning. We take them off the charging dock and at closing at 9.30 or so, it's still at 60, 70%. You never have to worry about the charge going down. They could last 24 hours. So there's really no problems. It's just a win-win and the busing of the tables and bringing the dirty dishes back. Again, the servers are utilizing them so much that it just saves them so much time. They're giving the customers more attention. And again, the customer just really love it. They have conversations with it. They ask questions about it. And it's just really good for everybody there. It just really saves a lot of time. And instead of having a busser every night that we might have busing tables, the robot can really take that place so they can do other things like maybe help seat people or anything else. So it really saves on labor and it saves on payment, saves on time and the customer are getting the, reaping the benefits of it basically. I love it. And no one's calling out sick. No one's calling in late. Right, Ted? No, no. They show up for work. It's gonna be very strange if he walks off the job. He rolls off the job. Right, because I know what it's like, right Ted? I mean, people call in sick. People call in late. People don't show up. It's like, hello, why don't you call? But you know, it's this era that we're in right now. And that's the other thing. If you work a wait or eight hours, he's not gonna be as tired as he was running back and forth. So, you know, like you said, I mean, he'll make more tips, be out there at the tables, turn the tables quicker. So, like I said, it's a win-win situation. And do you really know how to do it, right? Like Gary, they said at first, it's a little different, but once you get it, it really, you'll see the benefit of it. You know. So Ted, we've got five minutes left. Is there anything else that you would like to share before we close this show? It has been so eye-opening. I'm so excited to come out to either Gukaku or Ruby just to enjoy seeing the robots. And you know, I'll take some video guy and I'll post it on the Hawaii Restaurant Association social media because this is something that we need to show. Well, we appreciate that. And like I said, we're here. You know, we formed this company. There's four of us. Michael Matani, Trapper Perkins, he's out of California. Frank Sanchez who worked with me before in Subway. And we formed this company to help the restaurant tours because like I said, we don't want to be a dying breed. And you know, I've seen so many restaurants close and people are tired. And we want this to be a growing breed restaurant tours and see that there is some sunshine coming through the window and there's light at the end. So, you know, I talked to all the restaurant guys and I know everybody's hitting their head against the wall and this can help. So this is what we're doing. So the word, you know, services is what we are. So anybody has questions that can call me, email me and you know, I can, you know, send them whatever they need. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you gentlemen. As I mentioned, anyone who is interested in seeing the US robotic services robots in operation, it's at Ruby Tuesday, Moana Loa. You can contact Ted as he said, contact me at info at Hawaiirestaurant.org and then I can put you in touch with Ted. Again, I am Cheryl Matsuoka, the executive director of the Hawaii Restaurant Association and Hawaii Restaurant Association is the voice of Hawaii's restaurant and food service industry. Please keep in touch. Everyone be safe and have a wonderful holiday season. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.