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The world’s first restaurant to employ a robot goes back more than a decade, to early 2006. Finally, India has caught up with its very own robot-themed restaurant, in Chennai.

Abandoning subtlety, the restaurant on Old Mahabalipuram Road is called Robot. It has four robot “employees” to serve guests, who place their orders on iPads at their tables. The robots understand Tamil too.

Initially called MOMO, the Thai-and-Chinese food restaurant was renovated and reopened on November 19 by owners Venkatesh Rajendran and Karthik Kannan. Its success has led them to plan expansion across Chennai. For diners, the opportunity to be served by robots is bound to be a novelty.

The robot team is likely to be upgraded with fresh imports from Japan. The plan, Rajendran told The Hindu: “Those robots will receive you and guide you to the table. If you come the next time, they will even recognise you.”

The food, though, is cooked by humans.