Robot brings smiles to Bettendorf Happy Joe’s

Happy Joe’s newest employee at its Bettendorf location is turning heads. A robot server has been pitching in so staff can spend more time with customers. Joshua Spiller, director of marketing with Happy Joe’s, spoke with Our Quad Cities via Zoom to discuss the robot’s impact.

“Its name is Happy 2.0,” said Spiller. “We found it very fitting, obviously, because we do our birthday parties with our Happy the Dog, so why not have this be Happy 2.0 and be like a little sidekick in our restaurant?”

Happy doesn’t take food orders, but it helps buss tables, take dishes to the dishwasher and delivers orders to tables. The company learned about Happy at an industry convention.

“Our CEO, Tom Sacco, was down at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, and he sat on a panel with a lot of other leading providers and other CEOs in the restaurant industry,” Spiller said. “He got in touch with the founder of the company, called Bear Robotics. He has a background as a Google software engineer and his company presented to us. Tom was very interested in what they were about and what their company stood for. We invited them to partner with Happy Joe’s and see what that relationship looks like, test out Happy in our stores and the rest was history. It was like a blessing; we went to a pizza expo and got introduced to a very nice gentleman and his company.”

Happy’s programming is user friendly, says Spiller. “It has a scan within the system and by the press of a button, you can tell it to go to Table 1 or Table 2 and then it will come back to the kitchen. You could instruct it as the guest; once you put your dishes onto Happy, you can also press ‘dishwasher’ and it’ll also go back and follow it to the dishwasher and then it’ll go back to the dining room.”

Spiller says Happy has been welcomed by customers. “The reaction from customers has been great. They love Happy; some of the highlights that they love about Happy is it has a lot of cool features you’re able to use on the tablet display screen. If someone has a birthday, you can put ‘Happy Birthday Josh’ on there, you can have Happy sing music so Happy will sing the birthday song.”

Happy can play more than birthday music. “They had a request to do the Star Wars theme song when they brought out their pizza, so we brought out a pepperoni pizza on Happy and played the Star Wars intro song and they loved it.”

Kids might be Happy’s biggest fans. “They see it and their faces light up, so the parents get the satisfaction of knowing that they have this experience at Happy Joe’s. Their kids are having that experience as well and they get to see their kids smiling at the end of the day,” Spiller said, “and that’s what makes us happy.”

“He makes the atmosphere at the restaurant, and he brings a calming nature, puts smiles on kids. It’s really cool to see the kids followed behind Happy. If you’re in front of Happy, he’ll stop and do some beeping. It’s very aware of its surroundings but the kids are following it, following it back, following the tables bringing out the pizza. It’s really cute to see.”

Spiller is adamant that Happy 2.0 isn’t taking jobs away from people. “The reason why we’re doing this and allowing Happy to help dishwashers, help bring out the pizzas and help us with the tables is because we want our servers to spend more time with them (customers). We want them to be at the tables interacting, asking those questions, creating that family friendly environment. The beauty of Happy is it’s allowing us to do that; it’s allowing our servers to spend more time with the family, spend more time with the kids, laugh, giggle, tell jokes, really create that sense of family within our restaurants. That’s what we love about having 2.0, it’s allowing us to spend more time with our guests.”

Even staff members are thrilled with Happy, says Spiller. “He’s amazing! I would have to say it’s a sight to see and it’s being received very well from the public and also our employees. Some employee feedback from Happy has been ‘it’s been a blessing to have the robot in our restaurant because it allows us to spend more time with the guests,’ whether that’s filling up more sodas or whether that’s sharing a laugh with them.”

Spiller is pleased that so many people are enjoying interacting with Happy. “It’s been an interesting and fun journey, implementing this idea into our restaurants. I’m just happy to see that the public is taking very well to it and more importantly, the families and the kids, At the end of the day, if our families are happy then we’re happy because that’s what we’re here for is to make those moments.”

Click here for more on Happy Joe’s, including hours and menus.

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