That's what our company is trying to address with
service robots, but you'd be surprised...
or not...at how resistant American restaurants and food establishments are at adopting technology and just resisting change in general. The market size for automation equipment in restaurants is about 50-100 times bigger each in Korea and Japan vs the entirety of the US, and when we discuss with potential customers, their plans to adopt automation technologies are still years out. Despite the fact many of these decision-makers have seen these tools deployed when they visit food establishments overseas, there's a lot of factors that are crippling their ability to rapidly react, some that are actually valid, and others that are largely a figment of their imagination.
For fast food establishments, it should be a no-brainer to adopt automation technologies. You don't go there to chat up a storm with the wait staff and just want to get your food, quick in and out. But I've seen countless times visiting fast food restaurants how many guests have complained about the ordering kiosks and the laziness of patrons in general when it comes to ordering their food. The level of service is already low so owner/operators are reluctant to bother with service robots, though some have adopted automation more on the back-end.
AB1228 changed the requirement from 100 locations nationwide from AB257 to just 60 locations, so if there's a fast food chain with 60 locations nationwide and even one happens to be in California, that particular location would have to abide by the regulations. You'd think it'd impact these larger chains the most, but every mom and pop restaurant owner I've spoken to says this will impact them even more. Why? Unless they match or pay more, their workers will just go over to the fast food chains that pay better. They're already struggling and this will just hurt them more. But they're also very reluctant to adopt these new technologies too because it requires making changes to their floor plan to better accommodate these tools.
On that note, the Asian restaurant owners were very agile and accommodating, we've had several remodel and rearrange their layout to accommodate our tech and they're quick to grasp the benefits. But non-Asian restaurants...forget about it. Zero attempt and zero effort to make changes. The cultures are so far apart in their dining experience and expectations. Many don't even adhere to ADA requirements in aisle width requirements and again, no effort to comply, it's incredibly frustrating to see. This extends to the back-end as well, robots and food processing automation systems save tremendous costs but they take days to implement, pull permits, prepare construction for changes needed, install new equipment and most restaurants, when they see the initial cost to make those changes, they just balk and continue business as usual.
There's tremendous resistance from the labor/workers and unions as well. When we speak privately with them, they obviously see the benefits, but they're not going to go out publicly and admit that. So despite California mandating these smart/stupid policies, it's not having as much of an impact as expected. It will change inevitably, I'm sure, but the pace is snail like vs the rest of the world.