Restaurant chain YO! Sushi has claimed it is trialling a flying tray gadget to speed up the delivery of food to its customers’ tables. The Japanese firm says its waiters can now whizz the bizarre iPad-controlled iTray over tables and between chairs at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour, or six times faster than they usually walk.
According to YO! Sushi’s boss Robin Rowland, staff at a central London branch will use iPads with a flight control app to make the unlikely-looking tray take off vertically to the height set by the user The food-laden UAS is then apparently steered around the flagship store, in Soho, by tilting the iPad in the direction you want it to travel.
YO! Sushi’s gadget has two high definition cameras onboard, which feed live images back to the controller. It means staff can load the tray in the kitchen, fly it to a customer’s table, and return it to base when they see the food has been removed, the company claims.
Staff says customers not only enjoy the ‘theatre’ of having their food delivered in an unusual manner but get it quicker too – meaning it has less time to cool. Their gadget has a range of 50 metres, and it is said if it proves popular it could be rolled out to all 64 of Yo! Sushi’s UK restaurants next year.
Waitress Gabriella Micu, 28, still follows the flying tray around her restaurant while she develops complete control over it. She said: ‘Serving customers using the iTray was strange at first and I crashed a couple of times, but I quickly got the hang of it. It’s easy to control and similar to a video game. It’s really fun for customers and I hope we can get to the point where we can serve guests from the central kitchen as it would definitely help to cut down the time walking around the restaurant.’ The iTray is made from a light-weight carbon fibre frame and consists of four propellers, which make it incredibly nippy. YO! Sushi said it currently has two models in operation.
The company claims it has launched the iTray to mark the release of their new burger, which replaces the traditional bun with Japanese toasted rice. The beef patty is also substituted for teriyaki chicken, kimchi salmon, prawn katsu, tilapia katsu (whitefish) or tofu katsu.
Customer Mark Love, 26, from London, said: ‘When I ordered the burger I never imagined it would come flying towards me on a tray. It was amazing and the weirdest thing, like something out of a science fiction novel. It was delivered as if by magic, like an alien flying saucer bringing food directly onto my table.’
Robin Rowland, CEO of YO! Sushi, said: ‘We brought the famous kaiten conveyor belt to the UK, introduced interactive call buttons, speaking robot drinks trolleys, self-heating plates and video game toilets.
‘Now we have introduced the iTray, which is great fun.’ Mike Lewis, YO! Sushi executive chef, said: ‘We’ve been training our Soho team for several weeks now to get used to working with our new flying friend.
‘With the YO! Burger, we wanted to introduce our customers something entirely new, inspired by Japan and exclusive to us. It’s taken several months to develop, a raft of new kitchen equipment, but with the YO! Burger and iTray we know guests will feel like they’ve had a taste of the future.’
Source: The Nation
[ Projects using QuadCopters for delivery are abundant – we’ve covered several in recent months:
You can judge for yourself how serious they all are…Ed.]
Interesting… although I have to trust that the iTRAY has all the prerequisite safety equipment installed to prevent an unexpaeted mishap thta could cause injury to a patron or an employee.