Food for Thought

Simon was doing his best. The lunchtime service had started quietly. A few customers arrived just after they opened and Simon helped them choose from their personalised menus using his usual, well-tuned, efficient skills.

Then, more-or-less on time, the cycling club arrived, although there were five fewer than had been booked. He accommodated them at their usual large table along one side of the room, removing the unused settings.

All easily within Simon’s capabilities and just what he had been trained to cope with.

More diners arrived, some with bookings, and several without, unsurprising really since it was a sunny spring weekend. Extra covers had been expected and catered for, more tables had been laid in the annex.

Mr De Salis seemed delighted to see how well Simon was coping alone with the busy crowd.

Was he testing Simon when sat with the cyclists in one of the empty places?  But the waiter managed without a pause, relaying the place and giving ‘Sir’ his own menu.

What might have caused Simon more difficulty was when the five missing riders actually turned up. Now their places needed to be re-laid – and confusingly Mr De Salis had taken one of them…  Amazingly, Simon managed to cope with this without a hiccup even though there wasn’t really quite enough room at the table for the extra setting.  

The busy service was back on course. The room was buzzing.

Then, one of the late-arriving cyclists started to kick up a fuss. “I wanted the steak pie, but it is £16.95 on my menu and Tom ordered his for just £13.95”, he said pointing to the fellow cyclist who had been part of the main group”.

Simon explained that the Hen & Chickens was now trialling ‘dynamic pricing’.

“I don’t care what you bloody call it, it’s extortion and our lot won’t be coming here again”, he all but shouted, as heads turned among others in the restaurant.

“Perhaps I could intervene here,” Mr De Salis said calmly, stepping between Simon and the angry customer. “We are trying a new method of managing the kitchen so that everything runs smoothly, but I assure you we can adjust your bill.”

But the disgruntled cyclist was not appeased. “I don’t see why I need to pay more just because I’m a few minutes late.”

Simon had shuffled away as Mr De Salis tried to deal with the irritated customer in a pleasant manner. But there was now a buzz throughout the room. Several customers were comparing menu prices on different tables and it seemed that almost every item had variable pricing.

“I ordered my steak for £27.50, but that man over there says he chose the same item for £22.50 and that included the sauce,” a large late-coming man said, standing up to confront Mr De Salis.

“I didn’t realise this would cause so much consternation,” Mr De Salis said across the room to all the diners. “You are all used to it in other areas – train tickets, airline seats, theatre tickets. It allows us to offer cheaper prices and to make sure we are unlikely to sell out of any menu item.”

Simon was now moving aimlessly from table to table. He didn’t seem to be able to comprehend what was going on.

Worse still, what had been the smooth flow of food from the kitchen had now stopped completely.

Mr De Salis knew exactly what he had to do.

“As you may have realised, dear customers, you have been served today by our new robotic waiter, Simon. He connects directly with the kitchen.

“You will all be getting your food free today while Simon is re-programmed and we will not be offering variable prices next time you come, which I hope will be very soon.

“I had tried to keep your meal costs lower by encouraging some diners to take less costly items as we ran short of any particular meal, but I can see now that it can cause discord.”

“I don’t want to be served by a robot anyway”, said the large steak man. “Why call him Simon - he’s a bloody bot.”

Gradually the room got back to normal. Diners ordered extra now it was all free. And Colin in the kitchen coped brilliantly, interfacing seamlessly with Simon again.

A costly first-day trial, Mr De Salis reflected as he went through the manual, reprogramming Simon that evening.

Still, wages, even in catering, added up and diners would get used to being served by robots. He was just trailblazing. He wasn’t the only one to be buying Simons and Colins - the Sophisticated Interactive Meal Optimising Nodule, S-I-M-O-N, had worked so well with C-O-L-I-N, the Consumables Operational Location & Implementation Nodule.

One robot waiter, one robot chef and potentially more than 120 covers in a single sitting. Might need a little tweaking but people would soon get used to it once it became more commonplace and there was a price advantage to them, too. Then he could add W-A-L-T-E-R to the system – Washing And Laying Tables Extra Resource - and make ‘the operation totally inhuman’… that's how it was described in the brochure, anyway.