Restaurants

Minneapolis columnist: kiosks killing fast food clerks

Image: Adobe Stock.

April 11, 2023

James Lileka, a columnist for the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis, bemoans the loss of cashiers to self-serve kiosks in a recent column.

Lileka poses the question: "What's better, a day filled with irritating human encounters or one where every transaction has the rote, sterile perfection you get when dealing with a well-programmed machine?"

He opines that "The more we lose to machines, the more these little moments (of human interaction) matter."

As regular Kiosk Marketplace readers are well aware, kiosks aren't displacing restaurant employees as much as reassigning them. The improved productivity kiosks bring in many instances creates the need for more employees.

Another issue Lileka fails to consider is that the shortage of human help restaurants have been suffering in recent years has not been caused by automation as much as an overall labor shortage.