Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Matt, I think we might have gone about two hours
Speaker 2: and twenty three minutes without mentioning AI. Wow, and we're
Speaker 2: gonna blow for this show.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's your record, because Carrol's record.
Speaker 3: Carol will talk about AI in relation to dealing with
Speaker 3: your pet like anything.
Speaker 2: All right, how about it dealing with the restaurant business.
Speaker 2: And this won't be a first because we've heard a
Speaker 2: couple of people talk about automating like.
Speaker 1: The drive through.
Speaker 3: Drive through that's a slam dunk, right, We'll taking to
Speaker 3: upsell you every time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're taking it to a different level here.
Speaker 2: Robert Irvine, he's celebrity chef host of Restaurant Impossible on
Speaker 2: the Food at network. He joins us on the phone
Speaker 2: from Tampa, Florida. Robert again, Matt and I. It seems
Speaker 2: like when we talked to members of the C suite
Speaker 2: and almost any industry out there, one of the top
Speaker 2: topics is, you know, artificial intelligence, how can it impact
Speaker 2: my business, either positively or if I'm in the tutoring
Speaker 2: business negatively. Talk to us about kind of restaurant business
Speaker 2: house technology in general kind of impacting that business for
Speaker 2: good and bad and kind of what are you what
Speaker 2: do you look for the next several years?
Speaker 4: Well, think think about technology in general has changed, right,
Speaker 4: We went from paper menus to iPads.
Speaker 1: Now now every airport has an iPad without people. Yep,
Speaker 1: people just deliver food.
Speaker 4: So technology has changed from the point of sale over
Speaker 4: years and years being imagery controlled. Also, pictures sell faster
Speaker 4: than words. So I think literally the next generation of
Speaker 4: restaurants will have very few people. I think AI will
Speaker 4: will be a huge part of the forward customer facing
Speaker 4: as well as the back end where the food is
Speaker 4: produced and served.
Speaker 1: So it's going to change dramatically over the next two years.
Speaker 1: I guarantee is that is that.
Speaker 2: A net positive? It sounds like a net positive for
Speaker 2: the restaurant business business. From a financial perspective, I know that,
Speaker 2: like a lot of industries, the restaurant industry has a
Speaker 2: very difficult time. I'm finding labor for sure.
Speaker 1: Look right now, we're paying.
Speaker 4: Anywhere from twenty two to twenty seven dollars for a
Speaker 4: cook that can't cook, you know which. It sounds funny, right,
Speaker 4: So are there are obviously ways we can make better.
Speaker 4: We have a server or a or a host that
Speaker 4: sits there and we're paying them to do nothing.
Speaker 1: AI will upsell by twenty eight percent.
Speaker 4: We know that, but fact so, the average check goes up,
Speaker 4: the service time is faster. You know, the restaurant industry
Speaker 4: is having such a tough time right now with not
Speaker 4: only going through COVID. We lost fifty four percent of
Speaker 4: our restaurants through COVID across the country.
Speaker 2: Fifty four I've never heard it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's huge. Wow. Think about what we have and
Speaker 1: what we don't have now.
Speaker 4: The majority of Mama Pop restaurants can't afford to pay
Speaker 4: with inflation, with salaries, with everything like that, AI is
Speaker 4: always going to be I think McDonald's spent a billion
Speaker 4: point five one point five billion dollars on AI for
Speaker 4: their grab and go restaurants.
Speaker 1: So I get that it works well at McDonald's.
Speaker 3: But if I come to a restaurant where you're cooking food,
Speaker 3: I want a human to tell me, you know, what's
Speaker 3: tasting good tonight, or what the chef is interested in,
Speaker 3: or you know, I just need an opinion that can
Speaker 3: only come from a person.
Speaker 1: Well, you're never gonna you're still going to get that.
Speaker 4: You're not going to remove humans, but the mundane tasks
Speaker 4: of humans, I dishwashing, fris French fries, uh, chips, things
Speaker 4: like that. We're going to be all by robotics and
Speaker 4: AI are ordering systems. Are going to buy by AI
Speaker 4: simply because we make less mistakes, we less waste, and
Speaker 4: we're not paying people do we don't need to pay.
Speaker 4: You're still gonna have somebody to serve the food, of
Speaker 4: course you are. It depends on the style of restaurant
Speaker 4: that you have as.
Speaker 1: To the AI that works for you.
Speaker 3: I also need to bribe the matre d Robert, so
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: So instead of bribing it, you can spend more money
Speaker 4: on that butler wine that you wanted.
Speaker 2: Exactly So, Robert, you know, Matt and I here in
Speaker 2: our studio, we have a bank of TV screens from
Speaker 2: all the cable networks. And invariably it's illegal immigrants rushing
Speaker 2: over the border in the southern border. And I know
Speaker 2: one of the industries that has historically benefited from migration,
Speaker 2: both legal and illegal, has been the restaurant business. Talk
Speaker 2: to us about kind of how your industry views this
Speaker 2: country's immigration policy or lack thereof.
Speaker 4: Well, here's the thing right now, we're struggling with labor
Speaker 4: no matter what. It's not just the restaurant industry. You know,
Speaker 4: load paying jobs. And I say when I say load
Speaker 4: paying jobs, it used to be seven dollars per person.
Speaker 4: Right now it's fifteen, twenty, twenty two, twenty seven. It
Speaker 4: has gone over the years. We don't have themeople to
Speaker 4: do those Mondays asks. If you look at cruise ships
Speaker 4: as a great example of how we've changed doing business,
Speaker 4: cruise ships don't have very many many Americans doing mundane charts.
Speaker 4: They don't we go all around the world to pick
Speaker 4: up people that we pay less money to do. That's
Speaker 4: simply the facts really is. And AI is going to
Speaker 4: change that. It's going to rededicate the labor that we
Speaker 4: do have to doing a better job instead of sitting
Speaker 4: in a chewing gum or being on their phone.
Speaker 1: You know. The immigration policy that I can't talk on.
Speaker 4: I don't get involved in that policy, although I would
Speaker 4: love to see people that come to this country or
Speaker 4: people in this country being able.
Speaker 1: To work and do the jobs. Look, you can.
Speaker 4: Make twenty seven thirty dollars fifty dollars working from home. Now,
Speaker 4: why should I go and be a dishwasher or a
Speaker 4: server or a cook in a restaurant. If you imagine,
Speaker 4: every film star that wanted to be a film star
Speaker 4: in La started in restaurants doing something different. We don't
Speaker 4: have them people anymore. So that's why AI is going
Speaker 4: to take over that role.
Speaker 3: I got to say, you know, people know you, of course,
Speaker 3: Robert from your hit show on the Food Network. Restaurant impossible.
Speaker 3: I feel like AI, you could put AI to use
Speaker 3: replacing a lot of your staff on the production crew
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and we do. And here's the funny thing. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm working with Grubber. I'm putting Grubber, the new technology
Speaker 4: self serving or ordering technology into the Pentagon itself that
Speaker 4: might have a restaurant inside the Pentagon, right, think about that?
Speaker 4: How does how do we put AI into the Pentagon
Speaker 4: when you can't use your phone in the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, but you have to have a closed circuit
Speaker 3: system or how do you do that as to go out,
Speaker 3: it has to has to go out of the building
Speaker 3: to get cleared, to make sure it's safe to come
Speaker 3: in to get paid.
Speaker 4: It's kind of interesting. But AI is always going to change,
Speaker 4: it will continue. Look, I did a restaurant last year
Speaker 4: that had bowling alleys that were still using pen and
Speaker 4: papers to tell you the scores. You know, people mum
Speaker 4: and pop and big business has to change because you know,
Speaker 4: it's not only the customer experience that we're talking about now,
Speaker 4: it's every facet of commerce, whether it be restaurants, whether
Speaker 4: it be hospitals, whether it be doctors' offices, retail stores.
Speaker 1: We just don't have the workforce.
Speaker 4: So you know, if you and other Walmart is a
Speaker 4: great example, they have a store that has no people
Speaker 4: in it. Right, whether we like it or not, Who's
Speaker 4: going to do those jobs? If we can't employ them,
Speaker 4: do the stores or the restaurants or whatever close or
Speaker 4: do we keep them open using AI and other ways?
Speaker 4: And I think the hospitality industry think about before we
Speaker 4: used to have front desks in hospital in hotels, you
Speaker 4: get your key. Now you can do it on your phone.
Speaker 4: You don't need to talk to a person. You can
Speaker 4: order towels, food, everything from your phone. So we've advanced
Speaker 4: dramatically over the last ten years.
Speaker 3: For sure, grubber is a pretty cool technology. Where does
Speaker 3: grubber who uses grubber besides you. I mean, I know
Speaker 3: you use it in the Pentagon, but where else is
Speaker 3: brand new?
Speaker 4: Is brand new technology between Samsung having a hard case
Speaker 4: and then grubber having the intellectual property.
Speaker 1: Inside of it. Right now is out testing all over.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's the newest and I'm saying
Speaker 4: this the newest technology, the fastest technology there is out there.
Speaker 4: So we're testing it in lots of places. You'll see
Speaker 4: it all over. I mean there are different ways as
Speaker 4: tablets as phones.
Speaker 1: Says. Look, you can go to a stadium.
Speaker 4: How many times have you ever been to a football
Speaker 4: game or a baseball game? And the restaurants are twenty
Speaker 4: three or twenty five in number, and you want a
Speaker 4: French fry from one, You want a chicken nugget from
Speaker 4: that you want right.
Speaker 3: They all have lines like forty fifty sixty people standing
Speaker 3: in line.
Speaker 1: You don't need that anymore.
Speaker 4: With grubber, or as you do, you get the barcode
Speaker 4: on your seat, which are there in stadiums, You order
Speaker 4: your food and it all comes at the same time.
Speaker 1: And the back end, this is what I love and
Speaker 1: this is why I partnered with grubber.
Speaker 4: The back end solution that goes into the kitchen is
Speaker 4: so so fantastic. It's not only that you can order
Speaker 4: an upsal on the front, the way it's split up
Speaker 4: into the back out of the house. I use less labor,
Speaker 4: I get a better product, less mistakes, and it's delivered.
Speaker 1: Fact.
Speaker 2: Technology all right, technology again in the restaurant biz, it's coming.
Speaker 2: Robert Irvine, celebrity chef, host of a restaurant Impossible on
Speaker 2: the Food Network, joining us on a phone from Tampa, Florida,