Restaurants are expected to hit record numbers this summer, leading Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer to sound the alarm about staff shortages – an issue that’s being tackled with AI and robots.
“Since April, now we have hired over 900,000 employees. We’d like so much more, but we anticipate record-breaking trips this summer. Record hotel occupancy. Restaurants are booming, but we’re challenged because we’d like people to run all our business,” the TV star explained to host Stuart Varney.
During his Monday appearance on “Varney & Co.” Taffer attended the National Restaurant Association convention, which was heavily centered around robotics and automation technology.
“In my restaurant business, we use it more in the back of the home for shopping, pricing and stuff like that. Here I’m now standing in the SkyTab cabin. These are all recent transactional technologies that connect third parties like DoorDash and Uber Eats to the POS system,” Taffer began.
“Frequency programs, bank card programs, all now combined into one system. After which robotics is large. Wendy’s plans to launch an automatic ordering chat program in Europe. There are restaurateurs, they’re already going crazy.”
![Taffer (C) is seen at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at his restaurant](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Taffer-3.jpg?w=1024)
![A robot waiter carries empty trays after delivering an order to customers in](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Taffer-5.jpg?w=1024)
Fast food chain Wendy’s, noted by Taffer, has announced a recent partnership with Pipedream, an organization that has developed an underground autonomous robotic system that can be used to deliver digital food orders from kitchens to parking spaces in seconds.
The goal, Wendy’s said in a press release, is to supply faster and more convenient pickup.
Wendy’s will be the primary fast food restaurant to pilot Pipedream technology, nevertheless it likely won’t be the last.
In response to Varney, AI was largely seen as a “negative threat” to humanity.
Given the labor shortage, Taffer sees AI as a breakthrough that will undoubtedly increase profitability.
“Not only that, we won’t find employees [to] so we’d like to resolve the issue. If we won’t resolve this with employees, we’ll move on to automation,” concluded Taffer.