With restaurants facing staff shortages and dealing with rising overheads, one eating place is taking a novel approach. The UK's first ever unstaffed restaurant is set to open, with machines cooking your noodles and dispensing your ice cream.
The EZ 24 RAMEN will open in Oxford later this year. People will pay a subscription – daily, weekly or monthly – to get 24-access to hot and cold food.
How does a restaurant without staff work?
A day pass will cost £1.70 and monthly access will give people up to 40 visits, using a code to enter the building. Once inside, customers can eat noodles and toppings including pickles, kimchi, mushrooms, bean sprouts and fish cakes – all cooked in just three minutes.
Meanwhile, vending machines will provide drinks, ice cream and meal kits. Pinball machines will help customers pass the time.
Co-founder Indra Tor said: "I wanted to create a forward-thinking place that looks at how people live their lives today. The world has changed, and people's habits are different.
“EZ Ramen is about being forward-thinking about technology and how we can create a restaurant that is different and embraces new things but also allow people to learn. There's a lot of negatively sometimes around new tech, and we want to show people in an organic setting that if done right, the tech can be used to great effect and of course serve them some good ramen."
