Welcome to Prague’s wonderful robot saloon

Forget the days of nursing a drink at the bar while pouring out your woes to the bartender. At least if a new establishment in Prague is a sign of the future.

The Cyberdog in the Czech capital features a robotic bartender who serves drinks ordered through a phone app.

Opened on Wednesday by real estate developer Trigema, its two-level steel structure looks rather like a space station, with 40 seats and small upper deck.

And never mind George Orwell’s sentiment in his essay The Moon Under Water that the perfect pub has “barmaids (who) know most of their customers by name, and take a personal interest in everyone”.

In the Cyberdog, after the customers have ordered their tipple via an app, a red robotic arm picks among seven wines on offer in a cool box. It then opens the bottle and pours up to four glasses at a time.

Next it lifts the glasses on a tray that travels overhead to the customers’ table, then lowers the load so people can pick up their glasses.

Trigema owner Marcel Soural said he was sure the service sector would follow manufacturing in replacing expensive labour with machines.

“I am deeply convinced that in some time, when you will be served in a restaurant by a real person, it will be a terribly expensive restaurant because it will be unique,” he said.

Soural said there were already a few robotic bars around the world but the Cyberdog robot performed more complex tasks than the others - even doing little dances.

“When he has no order, he is bored and he shows that by making moves according to what he has in his programming.”

The bar, created by artist David Cerny and architect Tomas Cisar, also serves food meant to resemble astronauts’ diets. That is prepared by people, at least for now.

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First Published: Nov 29, 2018 13:01 IST