Thought I’d try Nairobi’s first Robot Cafe.

Great idea, failed by poor follow through, but I’ll start at the beginning:

The website offers a booking system so I expected a bustling establishment – cue tumbleweed! The openfloor restaurant itself is on the ground floor of the quiet Lana Plaza, Oloitoktok Rd, Kileleshwa.

When you sit down there is a code to scan on the table:

Which leads you to the website. However you cannot order here, you see what you want and then give your order to a human waitress. The robot waiters:

have been replaced by RC delivery units which, according to the supervisor, are much faster.

These are steered by the supervisor, remotely, via an app on her smartphone. However they never promised autonomous robots so I can’t be dispointed, but programming a simple line following robot would have been very easy for even a Year 7 student!

The actuall robot “servers” have been consigned to the ignominious role of “photographic prop”:

The food, when it comes, is OK. My sunny side up eggs were basically raw on top so I had to ask for them to be flipped and re-fried. Capuccino was OK. Whilst I was there a robot came out, carrying a small cake, whilst playing “Happy Birthday to you”.

The environment was mediocre. The food was mediocre. The flies were a problem!

My score: 5/10