Which US Restaurants Use Serving Robots? Public Examples

Which US restaurants use serving robots?

Public reporting names Chili's, Kura Sushi, Denny's franchisees, Abuelo's and Chick-fil-A among US restaurants that have put serving robots on the floor. Service Robot Co. is a commercial robot integrator, and each example below is credited to its news or company source, not claimed as our work.

Most of the public record comes from restaurant trade press, company news releases and wire stories, and it is uneven. Some chains ran a short test at one location and said so. One announced a system-wide rollout. One paused. The sections below keep each example to what its source says, with the date, because a robot program reported in 2022 may look different today. Nothing here says a program is running right now unless the source says so.

The makers behind the robots appear in the reporting too. Bear Robotics, Pudu Robotics and Richtech Robotics are the ones named in the Associated Press story cited below, and Bear Robotics is named in most of the chain examples.

How did Chili's use its robot server?

Chili's, owned by Brinker International, is the best documented case. According to Dallas Innovates, which reported the expansion on April 27, 2022, the robot named Rita was made by Bear Robotics and piloted in 10 Chili's restaurants before the chain added 51 more, for 61 in total. Rita seated guests in host mode, carried food and drinks to tables, bussed tables and sang the chain's birthday song.

Brinker's senior vice president of innovation, Wade Allen, described the robot as a tool meant to make team members' jobs easier, and said it complemented staff rather than replacing them. He also reported that Rita performed tasks correctly 99 percent of the time. In guest surveys, 82 percent said their experience was better overall and 77 percent said their server spent more time with them.

Four months later the story changed. Restaurant Dive reported on August 25, 2022 that Brinker had paused the test. The restaurants already using robots would keep them, and new locations would not receive them. Chief executive Kevin Hochman said the company would stop projects it did not have a line of sight to a return on, and a Brinker spokesperson said the company saw great test results but was shifting its focus to simplifying operations.

The Associated Press told it differently in April 2023, reporting that Chili's halted the program after finding the robot moved too slowly and got in the way of human servers. Two sources, two explanations. Both are credited here, and neither is ours to settle.

What did Kura Sushi do with robot servers?

Kura Sushi USA skipped the slow pilot. Restaurant Dive reported on June 24, 2022 that the sushi chain had put server robots, called Kur-B the KuraBot, into all 37 of its US restaurants.

According to that report, the robots deliver drinks and condiments to tables, and the rollout came with table tablets for ordering and mobile phone checkout. Vice president Benjamin Porten named three goals: boosting sales, shortening table turn times and reducing labor costs. Chief executive Hajime Uba told investors on the April earnings call that the robots delivered immediate results in reducing the workload of front-of-house employees, and described the guest response as overwhelmingly positive.

Look at what the robot was given to carry. Drinks and condiments are light, repeatable and quick to hand off, which is a narrower job than running a full entree to a table of six. That detail comes from the report, and it is the kind of scoping choice a first deployment can copy.

Have Denny's, Abuelo's and Chick-fil-A tested serving robots?

Denny's described its test as a franchisee initiative. In a FOX Business report published on November 27, 2021, a company spokesperson said Denny's supports franchisees' efforts to test methods that surprise and delight guests. The robot, from Bear Robotics, had been running at one restaurant for about 60 days, and Denny's said it had no immediate plans to expand the test while it gathered guest and employee feedback.

Abuelo's Mexican Restaurant announced a pilot of the Servi robot at a single location on June 23, 2022. According to the company's news release on PR Newswire, the robot carries food and drinks to tables once orders are ready and returns dishes to the kitchen for washing. The release says the aim is to ease physical strain on servers so they can spend more time with guests, and that the robot is meant to assist staff, not replace them. Abuelo's described itself in the release as a 26-restaurant chain.

Chick-fil-A drew attention in September 2023. Restaurant Dive, citing a Business Insider report, wrote that the chain was testing robot servers in a handful of dining rooms, and that staff still refill drinks, clean tables and look after guests. The report identified the machine as Bear Robotics' Servi. Chick-fil-A had earlier run delivery robot pilots that served customers near restaurants rather than inside them.

Which independent restaurants and campus kitchens have used them?

Chains are only part of the picture. The Associated Press story, carried by CBS News on April 6, 2023, profiles smaller operators. Noodle Topia's owner, Li Zhai, told the reporter he bought a Pudu BellaBot in the summer of 2021 while struggling to hire, then added two more, and that three staff now handle the volume that five or six used to. The Sushi Factory also uses a BellaBot, according to the same story.

The Hilton College restaurant at the University of Houston began using a robot in December 2022. Dean Dennis Reynolds told the Associated Press it eased the staff's workload and made service more efficient. The same story says Chick-fil-A was testing robots at multiple US locations, and that the company reports they give employees more time to refresh drinks, clear tables and greet guests.

These are single operators describing their own results. They show who is trying robots and what they say about it. They are not studies, and nobody here has published a before-and-after count that others could check.

How many serving robots are in use?

Counts come from the makers, and they are projections or company claims. In April 2023 the Associated Press reported that Bear Robotics, which introduced Servi in 2021, expected 10,000 robots deployed by the end of that year in the US and overseas, and that Pudu Robotics had deployed more than 56,000 robots worldwide across its product lines.

The demand side is easier to read. The National Restaurant Association's 2026 outlook says the industry's workforce stands at 15.7 million employees, that 42 percent of operators reported their restaurant was not profitable last year, and that operators are investing in digital ordering, payments, automation and data analytics. A serving robot sits inside that investment picture, and the examples above show operators testing it one room at a time.

What do these examples teach a restaurant weighing a robot?

First, the stated goals were modest and specific: fewer steps for servers, faster table turns, drinks and condiments delivered, dishes cleared. None of the sources frames the robot as a replacement for the dining room team. Second, scale followed evidence at the larger chains. Chili's grew from 10 restaurants to 61 only after its early numbers came in.

Third, results depend on who is telling the story. Brinker reported 99 percent task accuracy and positive guest surveys. The Associated Press reported a different reason for the pause. Both can be true of the same program at different moments.

Fourth, the limits are real. The Associated Press story says robots cannot take orders, that steps and outdoor patios can be hard for them to navigate, and that some customers avoid them. A University of Central Florida study of 42 restaurant workers found resentment was strongest when robots malfunctioned or disrupted workflows, and when they arrived without training or explanation. None of these reports says the technology works for every restaurant. They say it depends on the room and the job.

What should a restaurant ask before trying a serving robot?

The public examples suggest a set of questions that a first deployment can answer in advance. They come from patterns in the reporting, not from a formula.

Kura Sushi gave its robots a narrow job and named its goals up front: sales, table turn times and labor costs. Chili's piloted before it scaled, and it measured task accuracy and guest response. Denny's and Abuelo's tested at a single location. The University of Central Florida study found that staff resentment grew when robots arrived without training or explanation, so each of these programs also depended on how well the team was told what was coming.

• What one job will the robot do first, and what will it leave to staff?
• What number will tell you it is working: table turns, steps saved, or fewer dropped orders?
• How will you measure it, and who will check it each week?
• Which floor, aisle and threshold limits does your room have?
• How will you brief and train the team before the robot arrives?
• What will you do if the program does not deliver, as the Chili's pause shows can happen?

Want help picking the right robot? Talk to us

Public examples show what other restaurants tried. They do not tell you what fits your floor. Book a free site assessment with Service Robot Co. and we will measure your route, pick the right machine across manufacturers, and tell you plainly if a robot does not suit your room yet.

If it does, we lease it on a 3-year lease with a $1 buyout at the end, deploy it, train your crew and service it. Support is 24/7 with 10-minute specialist triage, regional service engineers in every serviced state, three check visits a year and a 12-month warranty.