A Restaurant Robot Is Coming to a Food Mall Near You

Bear Robotics, founded by ex-Google developer John Ha, works to improve restaurant processes through automation. 

The startup's robot waitress, dubbed Penny, has sensors that allow it to deliver food to restaurant tables. Woowa Brothers, which runs South Korea's largest food delivery app, Baedal Minjok, has invested $2 million in the U.S.-based robotics startup.

Not surprising, the South Korean company announced its own delivery robot called Deli, which stands for delicious delivery (maybe in Korea, but here it still means cold cuts and salads), with a team at Korea University.

Deli started working at a food mall in the city of Cheonan in May. It retrieves finished dishes from the kitchen and delivers food to tables.

According to Woowa Brothers, its robot project will have three stages of development. The first was to develop Deli, which can deliver food in indoor environments. The second is to develop a robot that can deliver food in compound environments with both indoor and outdoor settings, such as apartments. The third stage will aim to make a robot that can use sidewalks and pavements to deliver food from the restaurant to the customer.

Their goal is to deploy the robots in bad weather or delivery rush hours and deliver food to places that are unpopular with human delivery staff.