Artificial intelligence and robotics are experiencing a golden age these days and Lanzarote is no stranger to this phenomenon. The Kokoxili Sushi restaurant in Arrecife already has the first robot waiter assistant, Bella.
Ekonomus has chatted with its owner, Jaime Jiang, since Bella still doesn't speak, although Jiang estimates that this year she will be able to respond to customers.
She has been working in Arrecife for almost a year, and is the first android to do so in a restaurant in the Canary Islands. It recharges in 60 minutes and has autonomy for 24 hours.
“First I saw her in a hotel in China, at the reception, and talking to the company I saw that at that time there were no distributors” in Europe, explains Jiang.
The owner of Kokoxili says that, after a while, in Madrid, he found a company from the Netherlands that had started distributing this robot in the old continent and agreed with them to become its distributor in the Canary Islands.
Bella, which costs around 11,000 euros, brings and takes dishes to customers, including cakes, but “what little children love is that she sings, including happy birthday”, Yiang highlights. And she doesn't do it in just any way, but with the version of Parchís, the mythical children's group from the 80s, while she walks the corridors of the restaurant blinking with her digital eyes.
“Now she needs a person to guide her with her mobile, but in the future it will be automatic. We want them to enable more functions for us”. Among them “talking and answering customers”, anticipates the owner of Kokoxili. “I think Bella will speak this year". It hasn't been possible before because of the pandemic”, he adds.
"A workshop to train local people in Asian cuisine"
Yiang says that Bella works a “full day, eight hours, without breaks, and doesn't smoke” (laughs). “People think that the robot takes work away from people, but in reality it only helps the waiters”, he explains.
In fact, Yiang, who has seven Asian employees in his restaurant (not including Bella) and six local employees in the Suko supermarket, which opened in Arrecife at the end of last year, wants to continue contributing to creating employment.
“My future idea is to have a workshop to train local people in Lanzarote in Asian cuisine, we have already trained hotel workers. There is a crisis of lack of trained workers in Asian cuisine”, he explains.
“I think that an Asian business doesn't have to have only Asian workers or a local business only local employees, my idea is to integrate everything”, he adds.
Meanwhile Bella arrives with some succulent crispy chicken bao buns, (“smiling buns” in Chinese), one of the latest novelties from Kokoxili, a restaurant that is committed to innovation, whether in robotics or gastronomy.