Restaurant Service Robots & Delivery Robots

What to look for

Front-of-house robots carry food and dishes, deliver orders across a building or campus, and guide guests. Service robots run trays from kitchen to table in dining rooms, while sidewalk and indoor delivery robots bring orders to residence halls, offices or patient floors.

Start with the route: floor surfaces, elevators, doors, slopes and crowds decide which robots will work. Ask about payload, battery life, how the robot navigates busy spaces, and whether it can use elevators on its own. For campus delivery, look at the operating model: some robots run through a third-party delivery app, with fees and commissions that affect your margins. Ask about contract terms, including what happens if the vendor exits your market, since this has happened on campuses. Service robots fit senior living dining rooms, hospital cafés and banquet operations where they free staff for guest contact. Measure success in staff time saved and guest satisfaction, not novelty.

This category currently lists 19 systems: 19 commercially available and 0 in pilot or limited release. 1 has an NSF listing we could find, and 18 are guest-facing.