What if the next time you went out to eat, there was no one to take your order — and your tip went straight to the people cooking your food?
That’s exactly what’s happening at Wok and Karahi, a restaurant in Spring that turned to artificial intelligence after struggling to stay open.
The restaurant is changing how it serves customers, and Head Chef Edwin Hernandez says the atmosphere has shifted because of it.
“It’s humble, you know, to wake up every morning and thinking I’m coming to work to a place where our customers not only happy. Us as well,” Hernandez said.
Instead of waiting for a server, customers are guided to a tablet-based ordering system.
“They don’t have to come and wait for the server,” Hernandez said.
Owner Abbas Manakibwala developed the software himself. It goes by the name Haniya.
“We point them to this tablet,” Manakibwala said. “She can better serve you more custom way. So here, if you’re dining in, you just select how many people, and it tells you which table to go.”
The AI goes beyond just taking orders. It can also predict when the restaurant will be busy and help streamline operational costs.
For some first-time customers, the switch to QR code menus has come with a learning curve.
“I would really like give it another shot. But it’s just the QR code thing, I think it’s not very convenient for every kind of people like my mom, she’s not like a QR code person,” said customer Amna Shaikh.
Despite the hesitation, Hernandez says the benefits in the kitchen are hard to ignore.
“It saves us time and the dish is more, it’s fresh,” he said.
For the owners, the move is also expected to pay off financially. They project the AI system will save them more than $115,000.
