Since June 2022, Coco Restaurante has added a new employee to its staff. A server capable of transporting several dishes in a single trip, helpful, respectful and a bit of a joker, who also boasts of having an Instagram account. His name, Coquito, a kitchen assistant robot that has been accompanying the workers of this restaurant in Burgos for several months, and which also stands out for being the first waiter robot in Castilla y León. Since its launch, other robots with the same function have arrived in the Community, although Coquito is already an eminence in Burgos.
This black and white robot is made up of three red trays that allow guests to carry an infinite number of dishes. “He saves us the trip to the kitchen, but he doesn’t order and people can’t take the dishes from him either. Our intention is for him to be a busboy“, explains the public relations manager of the Coco restaurant, Daniel Mata.
In this way, although There are several models of food processors, Coquito’s work focuses on moving to the restaurant kitchen, where the cook loads it and, using the accompanying tablet, explains where each tray should go. The robot then goes to the corresponding tables, where a waiter takes care of taking each dish and placing it on the table.
As Mata explains, heThe idea was born for several reasons.. First because They were very used to seeing this type of robot at the hotel trade shows they attended and their curiosity was “piqued”. Added to this is the lack of staff in the hotel industry.. A company from Elche, Bumerania Robotica, where Coquito is from, offered them to test a model and after putting it through its paces in their restaurant, they decided to stick with it.
“At first we were reluctant”, admits Mata, who assures that it was difficult for everyone to get used to him, because his pace is “slower” than that of a waiter to avoid that the dishes do not fall, even if it turns out to be “more practical”, since it allows you to transport many more dishes at the same time. For this reason, Mata admits that this colleague “saves a lot of work” for the waiters. “Now the tables are better served, you can treat the customer better, and the food arrives on time,” he says.
In fact, they particularly notice your help during the summer months, since they have to attend not only to the tables inside the restaurant, but also to the 50 that are on the terrace, and can carry over 2,000 serving dishes. In fact, this assistant saves restaurant servers seven kilometers every weekend, especially during the summer months.
Coquito is part of the third generation of robots and works like the famous Roomba vacuum cleaner, which performs a first mapping of the environment, identifying obstacles and with a few simple instructions., you learn their routes. On top of that, Coquito has cameras that allow it to avoid obstacles, and it even signals with its rear turn signals if it’s going to turn left or right.
In fact, If Coquito bumps into someone, she blurts out lines like, “I know I’m attractive, but I have to go” or “Ugh, I can’t move on, could you move a bit so I can pass?” “ or even bring cakes to the tables while Happy Birthday plays on their speakers. From the restaurant they assure that this robot attracts a lot of attention from people, especially the little ones, who are very surprised to see it.
Indeed, faithful to his devotees, Coquito has an Instagram account, where he uploads different videos and where customers can tag him in the photos they upload when they come to the restaurant.
Also, in this story you can see Coquito showing his pride of Burgos during the festivities of San Pedro and San Pablo, wearing the traditional red handkerchief of the festivities, and as Mata had expected, they plan to dress him as Father Christmas for these Christmas parties. dates.
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