The prospect of unmanned coffee shop is it better to have an unmanned coffee shop or a coffee shop in the present model?

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Eatsa officially announced that it plans to close five restaurants in New York, Washington, D.C., and Berkeley, California, leaving two stores in San Francisco to continue to operate.

If Amazon Go, the Amazon unmanned retail solution, stirs up the frenzy of the entire unmanned track, then Eatsa should probably be seen as a forerunner. In 2015, Eatsa opened in San Francisco. The reason why this restaurant has attracted people's attention is because of its "unmanned" landing.

Just by its appearance, it's hard to think of this as a restaurant: there are simple tables and chairs in front of the store, full of white electronic devices and regular rectangular empty cabinets, the former used to place orders, check out, and then pick up meals from the empty cabinets.

After entering the restaurant, you can see the white electronic devices in the ordering area, which are similar to iPad. By swiping the card, the system reads the identity information of the cardholder and you can start ordering. Eatsa offers vegetarian health packages, beverages and other options. After confirming the order, pay by credit card. Then move to the dining area, you will see your name appears on the electronic screen above the box empty cabinet, wait about 90 seconds, the background color of your name will turn green, the number of the corresponding empty cabinet will be displayed on the right side, and go to the corresponding grid. Your food is already waiting for you. In front of you is a transparent electronic screen showing your name, even the amount of nutrition you ordered, calories and other information, tap to open, take out the food, and the basic process of the restaurant is complete.

Although food still has to be cooked by people, the front-end efficiency experience of Eatsa's unmanned restaurant is much better than that of restaurants with crowded waiters in the past. Lei Feng, who experienced the restaurant in 2015, estimated that it took an average of two minutes for each person to order, and that six to seven meals per minute were delivered to empty cabinets and picked up by customers, with a peak from 11:30 to 1:30. A restaurant can sell nearly 1000 pieces of food a day. Even during the rush hour, there are a lot of people waiting in line, but it only takes six or seven minutes to wait.

The efficiency of restaurant customer transfer is still further improving. All your dietary preferences will be recorded and will be more efficient when you order later. In addition, you can also use the mobile app to order a meal before you reach the pick-up position, which saves some time.

It seems that the business, which earns white-collar money from surrounding offices, seems to be doing well, and Eatsa has copied the unmanned restaurant model to six other stores since last year. But now, the "expansion" of the unmanned dining experience of this full-process restaurant has to come to an end.

"the speed of expansion" makes it difficult to guarantee the quality of dishes, which makes Eatsa "action" heavy. Referring to the reasons for closing stores, the official announcement pointed out that due to cross-regional operations, it is difficult for Eatsa to be aware of the process of food standardization in a timely manner, especially when promoting new dishes.

If the lessons of Eatsa's rapid expansion can be avoided by companies trying to cut into the unmanned restaurant market, then Eatsa's "lack of feedback" is probably the "original sin" of the unmanned model.

The so-called unmanned model, in order to save labor costs is one of the main reasons to promote its development. Through machines, there is no use for at least two cashiers and two serving staff that traditional restaurants used to need. Indeed, with the reduction of human participation, the transfer efficiency of Eatsa is very high. For white-collar workers who are increasingly busy with work and precious time, being close to the "point-and-take" dining experience is also a beautiful story of technology-enabled life.

But at the same time, people used to play the role of interacting with customers and listening to feedback. In countless experiences of eating out (even in fast food restaurants), many people must have tried to report to the restaurant waiter that the dish is too light or too salty in order to have a better taste next time. The interaction with people is very subtle. On the surface, customers may just express their views to each other, but the actual subtle and deep impact may be more far-reaching, which is why we prefer restaurants with good service when other conditions are basically the same. Meticulous and thoughtful service will bring a good dining experience and make people feel happy. And these timely feedback and experience, unmanned restaurant is very difficult to achieve. In the "unmanned world" that emphasizes speed and efficiency, you can't expect customers to fill out a feedback questionnaire when they order in court. It can only be said that they order food through a mobile app, and then give comments on the operation of someone's restaurant. Feedback is still missing a timely part. According to Wall Street reports, Eatsa added more personalized dishes earlier this year before restoring some of its original dishes based on customer feedback.

It can be seen that the "unmanned mode" is not a "panacea", and people have their special value. Not long ago, when Wei Zhe, a former CEO of Alibaba, talked about unmanned convenience stores, he said that he thought it was appropriate to use it in unmanned restaurants. He points out that people are not costs, and people should be investors. People in retail stores are not tallymen, but become tallymen to help customers find the goods they want as soon as possible. By simplifying human operation, unmanned restaurants have the advantages of speed and efficiency, while obliterating the value of interaction with people. How to balance the two, rather than thinking about replacing the plot with unmanned interpretation, is a more important thing to consider.