Whether or not worker shortages persists, we'll certainly see more robotic restaurant servers in future; there's enough demand among spooked restaurant owners to support Servi, the server 'bot currently STEALING HUMAN JOBS filling unfilled positions at restaurants in L.A.

Servi

Servi

Now there's another. In South Korea, a café called Storant hired design & engineering firm Acasso to develop their own Automated Café Server Robot, which was developed in conjunction with the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials:

Both Acasso's creation and Servi have adopted R2-D2-like form factors, which makes sense; these things need to be friendly-looking, have rounded edges in case someone walks into one, and be table height for seated customers to grab items off of.

Because it's designed for a café, as opposed to Servi's full restaurant setting, the ACSR offers less storage than Servi and only has space to haul coffee, snacks and condiments.

It would be funny if some restauranteur decided to do away with tables altogether, and replace them with the 'bots themselves. Both Servi and the ACSR aren't much smaller than some café tables I've seen; what's needed is a tabletop wide enough to provide legroom beneath, and I propose that the 'bots be capped with automated Fletcher Capstan tops:

As a former server myself, I can tell you we were always under pressure from management to cycle customers out as quickly as possible. Table 'Bots would do a great job of this: As soon as the meal's finished, the table folds itself up and disappears into the kitchen, leaving four people sitting in an awkward circle with nothing between them, like a tiny support group. I guarantee they'd leave quickly.