There’s a new quinoa restaurant in San Francisco, one where customers order, pay and receive their food and never interact with a person, writes The New York Times (Sept. 9, 2015). The restaurant, Eatsa, the first outlet in a company with national ambitions, is almost fully automated. There are no waiters or even an order taker behind a counter. There is no counter. There are unseen people helping to prepare the food, but there are plans to fully automate that process, too, if it can be done less expensively than employing people. Whether a restaurant that employs few people is good for the economy is another question. Restaurants have traditionally been a place where low-skilled workers can find employment. Continue reading →