This tiny Riverina town is leading a robot revolution to address a shortage of workers

For better or worse, we all know that robots are coming to change our lives. From industrial assembly lines to vacuum cleaners, these little mechanical helpers are popping up all over the place.

But one place you would not expect to encounter a robot – let alone several – is when you stop for a coffee in a quiet Riverina town.

The Lockhart Cafe Restaurant occupies a picturesque art deco building in Lockhart’s main street and, thanks to owner Steve Peters, it is undergoing a robot revolution.

The cafe restaurant’s newest waiter is a “food distributor robot” named Ke-lee, and, in the room next door, a robotic arm is standing by to make “perfect” fairy floss.

“I’ve always been an early adopter,” Steve said with a laugh.

“I’m old enough to remember when man landed on the moon and I think at that point, I realised the future was inevitable.”

The panda-faced robot waiter has been on the job in the Lockhart Cafe for a few weeks now and Steve explained that he has the whole room mapped out on GPS.

“So I just put the order on the tray at the back here – you can do three orders at once – choose the table number and away she goes to deliver the food and doesn’t bump into anything.”

As promised, Ke-lee trundled off to the assigned table, turned the tray towards the customer and declared with a wink, “Hello, my name is Ke-lee – I have your order”, before offering thanks and heading back to the starting position.

With regional areas facing a worker shortage, Steve said robots provided an interesting solution.

“It can be really hard to find staff in retail. Really hard,” he said.

“Even when you’ve got travellers or backpackers who might want to work, part of the problem in Lockhart is that there is nowhere for them to live.

“We run a pretty big place, and we can get very busy with just two of us in here so the machine really helps.”

While he has been interested in computing and technology for more than four decades, Steve said it was spending time in China that introduced him to the advances in everyday robotics.

“You can go into a little mum and dad corner shop and there will be this robot-looking thing that looks a bit like ET that will come up to you and speak to you in Chinese. You tell it what you’re looking for and it’ll take you there,” he said.

“There are literally whole shops that run with this sort of technology.”

The fairy floss machine in the laundromat next door was Steve’s first robotic purchase and he claimed it makes the fluffy sweet in the “traditional way”.

But while the method might be familiar, there is not much traditional about the pastel-pink vending machine and its busy robot arm that twirls out intricate multicoloured treats in a minute.

“Nowadays, when you get fairy floss at the supermarket it’s just jammed into a bag, and it’s crunchy and not at all how it should be,” Steve said.

“As the name says, it should be a very fine floss, and that’s what you get with this, and it’ll make bears and love hearts and flowers and mushrooms and anything you want!”

The fairy floss machine was indeed a hit during Lockhart’s Spirit of the Land Festival, where a steady stream of kids lined up outside the cafe to watch the mechanical arm in action and to get a taste of the lighter-than-air confection.

Ke-lee and the fairy floss robot might be the main attraction at Steve’s main-street businesses, but if you look closely, there are high-tech machines in every direction.

A humble robot vacuum sits quietly in the corner waiting to clean up, a pasta-making machine turns out a noodle to make Nonna proud and an automated coffee maker is on hand in the laundromat for those in need of an after-hours brew.

At the Lockhart Cafe Restaurant, the future has arrived!