Covid staff shortages have forced restaurant chiefs to use robot waitresses to serve hungry diners their meals.
Directors of chain The Chinese Buffet struggled through the pandemic when restaurants were allowed to reopen as they needed to serve food instead of allowing guests to help themselves.
Owners Paolo Hu and Peter Wu have unleashed four 'BellaBot' robots, each dubbed Bella, in restaurants across the North West including Liverpool, St Helens, Bolton and Wigan.
Quirky footage shows Bella, who features a wide-eyed feline face, sweeping across the restaurant floor dishing out delicacies to delighted customers.
And if getting your dinner served by a friendly 'bot isn't enough to whet your appetite, Bella 'chats' and can even sing 'Happy Birthday' to diners.
The restaurant has battled with low staff numbers since reopening, meaning as restaurants got busier they struggled to find enough servers to keep up with demand - and staff isolating due to Omicron has only exacerbated it.
The Chinese Buffet spokesman David Ramsden, said: "Customers love it. We have people doing TikToks, others saying the children loved the robot.
"It's quirky and really interesting. It'll attract people to come to the restaurant to see the robot serving. It's a good pull for people into restaurants.
"We get families coming to see Bella, she even sings Happy Birthday at the table with the staff.
"During the covid pandemic, the buffets were closed even when restaurants were open because people needed to remain seated.
"Rather than being a [traditional] buffet, it became a table-service buffet. You order via the app and it was delivered directly to your table. That became much more onerous on the waiting staff.
"Previously people collected their own food but when you're doing table service, you need far more service staff.
"With covid issues causing staff issues, most often in hospitality, it's difficult to get the staff so robots became top of mind.
"It's timely because there's a big staffing issue in hospitality."
In their testing stages, staff at The Chinese Buffet, which also has restaurants in Wigan, Liverpool, Blackpool, Bury, Darlington, Huddersfield, St Helens and Wakefield, found Bella covers 67 miles per week on average.
Bella has four shelves meaning she can serve four tables at once and even talk to diners in the process.
David said: "Customers make the order from the app, the food comes out tapas style.
"You order a number of dishes and it's an unlimited dining experience. You order in lots of three, then you can order again and again.
"The order goes to the kitchen via the app. Prior to robots, the order would be put together and the waiting staff would take it to the table.
"Now, there are four shelves on Bella. You can programme it so she goes to table 57, table 43. A different order is on different shelves.
"When she gets to the table, she says 'table 52, please take your food from the shelf with the blue light'. The shelf lights up to show which is your food."
David said that while the robots are serving tables, she frees up staff time to interact with the customers and address their 'emotional issues' - such as complaints or additional needs.
David said: "I was in Wigan on Sunday evening talking to the managers there and they wouldn't do without them now.
"They were skeptical to start with but since they've had them, they make a massive difference.
"When I talk to people, there are two challenges. People say they don't want to be served by robots, they want to be served by people.
"Of course, we all do, but just because the robots are there it doesn't mean the humans aren't.
"It eases pressure on the staff and they can stay on the restaurant floor and interact with the customers.
"Robots can't deal with emotional issues, like if someone has a complaint or they need something extra.
"In trials, the robot did 67 miles a week - that's 67 miles that staff would be walking.
"It's primarily to solve the staffing crisis but that's the catalyst for it. It was a short-term solution for the staffing crisis but the reality is, it's making such a difference to the restaurant.
"If you go to Tesco now, you get the zapper and go to the automatic check out. This AI and robotics is coming.
"It's really timely and a good short-term solution to the staffing problem now, but it will become much more commonplace.
"They are Chinese manufactured and they're being used to some degree in Germany, Holland and Spain at the moment, and even in Slovenia, but nobody had actually brought them over here to the UK [before we launched them in November].
"We're now importing the robots and providing them to anybody that needs them - with hospitality being the initial target market."
