{"id":15039,"date":"2024-04-10T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T18:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/10\/restaurant-cashier-zooms-in-on-work-press-freaks-out-you-better-be-ready-for-a-lot-of-change-at-checkout-spoon\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T23:07:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:07:54","slug":"restaurant-cashier-zooms-in-on-work-press-freaks-out-you-better-be-ready-for-a-lot-of-change-at-checkout-spoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/10\/restaurant-cashier-zooms-in-on-work-press-freaks-out-you-better-be-ready-for-a-lot-of-change-at-checkout-spoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Cashier Zooms In On Work, Press Freaks Out. You Better Be Ready For A Lot Of Change At Checkout – Spoon"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This week, many stories about meeting a person carrying money from a distant place have spread.<\/p>\n

A flurry of alarming articles sprung up after Google employee Brett Goldstein found himself a cashier at a New York City restaurant called Sansan Chicken and moved on. sighing and tweeting about it<\/a>. From there, everyone from Eater to the New York Post covered the story. According to a book called 404 Media, the staffing company is called Happy Cashier. <\/p>\n

The dystopian framework is amazing, especially since this kind of technology is a smart way to send real workers to the places where they are needed. The elimination of the need to be physically present to perform non-physical tasks has been going on for years, something many users have experienced during this pandemic. This technology comes at the forefront of fast service and formats that are ready to make a complete sense. <\/p>\n

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Add to that the fact that remote cashiers have been approaching the workplace for at least the past few years, as companies like Bite Ninja have been building both a platform and training remote workers to operate the register. Initially targeting drive-thrus, Bite Ninja expanded to inside the restaurant a few years ago, and last year, they said they convinced more than 10,000 remote workers to use the technology.<\/p>\n

My guess is that part of the reason the connection was so slow was because the remote cashier was from the Philippines. While it could easily have been a stay-at-home mom in Louisiana or an off-duty truck driver from Minnesota, the fact that it was someone working outside the US, doing the work of someone who used to be there in person, made many in the press jump on the story for various reasons. <\/p>\n

Here’s the thing, though: the cashier is the easiest employee to replace with technology in the restaurant, something that has been seen for years as apps, in-store kiosks, and, more recently, AI-powered bots starting to take our orders. That it’s an immigrant worker shouldn’t come as a surprise, as we’ve seen jobs like phone customer service move overseas over the past decade. At least these platforms, like Bite Ninja, offer an opportunity to human employees because the biggest issue in the next decade will be that a significant part (if not the majority) of front-line customer service jobs will be lost to AI. You don’t have to look too hard to see that one of the biggest fast food restaurants in the US has developed (and named) its own AI-powered customer service agent. <\/p>\n

And voice AI agents are only the beginning. As we saw at CES a few years ago, virtual avatars are already treading the front lines of customer service, and some of them have names. Meet Cecelia the avatar bartender everyone. <\/p>\n

The important thing is that it is always interesting and instructive to see how this technology is perceived in the field by customers. Solutions such as digital kiosks are accepted as an easy and time-saving way to order food, while remote workers are installed almost at first may cause shock and surprise, although it is probably the least technically challenging of all emerging solutions. <\/p>\n

Customer response is important because it will be evaluated by chains that are testing new technologies for use. While a small regional player like Sansan Chicken may be comfortable as the first adopters of remote cash at the main checkout, don’t expect the big chains to adopt this widely until they feel their customers will be okay with the change. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n