SoftBank Robotics has opened the Pepper Parlor, a cafe where three different types of robots work alongside human staff to serve and entertain customers.
“The aim is to create a space where people can easily experience the coexistence of people and robots and enjoy the evolution of robots and the future of living with robots,” said the company in a statement.
“We want to make robots not only for convenience and efficiency, but also to expand the possibilities of people and bring happiness.”
Pepper is the cafe’s eponym robot. The semi-humanoid robot does most of the interacting with customers, such as greeting them and taking their orders.
SoftBank’s NAO robots provide entertainment, including performing choreographed dances. When the cafe closes, the company’s autonomous vacuum robot Whiz cleans the floors.
According to SoftBank, it did not open the Pepper Parlor only to show the public what a future full of robots might look like, but it also hopes to use the cafe to gather data on how to make its robots more useful for clients.
