Robot cats to the rescue: short-staffed New York restaurants use China-made machine waiters

After struggling to hire enough staff, some restaurants in New York have started using robots to serve their customers. The feline-themed mechanical waiters are made in China and not exactly cheap, but the US$16,000 BellaBot can reliably deliver food orders from the kitchen to the table. WowRobee, the company that helps distribute the robots, said many restaurants see automatons as an answer to hiring problems sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.