Japanese Restaurant Giant Rolls Out Robo-Cat Waiters

Two thousand restaurants operated by Skylark Holdings, Japan's largest operator of family restaurants, will use robot cats to serve customers by the end of 2022, according to a Nikkei Shimbun report. The black and white robots, with a digital face display, can serve tables of up to four people and remove the dishes when customers have finished their meals. A trial found the robot waiters were able to cut the number of steps human staff took in half during peak times.