Why the Future of Foodservice Starts with Design

Walk into a café today and you might be greeted by a smiling barista. Walk into one tomorrow, and it could be a robot with a glass of cold water. The difference isn’t just in who’s serving — it’s in how it feels.

For all the buzz about automation and AI in hospitality, the real question isn’t how advanced the tech is. It’s how human it can be. Because in foodservice, the biggest wins won’t come from faster hardware or more efficient workflows — they’ll come from moments that make people feel seen, surprised and genuinely delighted.

I believe that design is what turns tech into experience. It is design that makes tech palatable for the everyday person. And that experience is what will define the next era of cafés, restaurants, and labor-light kitchens.

What’s Actually Broken?

Let’s be honest: hospitality is under pressure. Staffing costs are up. Customers want more, faster, for less. And behind the scenes, kitchen workflows are creaking under demand. Operators are searching for scalable answers, and tech is often seen as the solution.

But not all tech is equal.

Throw in the wrong touchscreen or clunky robot, and you’ve solved one problem while creating three new ones. Customers feel it — the cold awkwardness of a poorly designed interface, or the uncanny blankness of a digital “assistant” that doesn’t quite understand what they need.

What’s missing isn’t more data or code. What’s missing is design thinking — the kind that sees through the eyes of the guest and staff, and knows that what matters isn’t just what happens, but how it feels.

A Coffee Order That Feels Like Magic

In a Beijing coffee shop, we helped build something different.

It starts like any café visit — with a chocolate and a drink. But instead of just a printed menu or app interface, your choices are supported and brought to life with light and design. Projected animations from an AR lamp dance across the counter, surrounding your chocolate, creating a sensory experience, an emotional experience. Helping you explore the flavor with your eyes before you’ve even tasted a thing. A winter treat with a polar bear moving across your table.

Behind the scenes, the same system maps your order — projecting your name onto the counter at pickup, guiding baristas with tray placement instructions, and using a ceiling-mounted camera to trigger gentle prompts when it’s time to clear a table or offer a refill.

This isn’t gimmickry. It’s infrastructure — but designed as theater. It’s fun, it’s playful, it engages the human. Every touchpoint feels personal, fluid, and quietly joyful. That’s what we mean when we say design makes technology feel human.

Don’t Replace the Barista — Elevate Them

There’s a persistent fear that automation is here to kill hospitality. That a labor-light café means a soulless one. But that’s only true if we let it be.

In reality, automation can take the pressure off, freeing up staff to focus on the things machines can’t do: engagement, empathy, intuition, connection with the customer. Not many people remember the perfect milk-to-coffee ratio. But what leaves a real taste of the business is the experience - the staff who catered the product to the customers’ needs

Consider a coffee robot that doesn’t try to mimic a human. It delivers barista-level brew precision so that actual humans don’t have to. And when that robot is shaped with warmth, humor, or a little charm? It becomes part of the environment — not a disruption, but a character.

Design Is the Difference Between Tech That Works — and Tech That’s Welcome

It’s easy to focus on functionality. But in hospitality, that’s just step one.

The real goal is to shape emotion. With every robot built or AR system created, designers must ask themselves: What will make someone smile? What would they want to share on their feed? What will make them come back?

We shouldn’t just create machines. We should choreograph moments.

The best tech doesn’t steal the show. It quietly disappears — letting the guest, the space, and the story take center stage.

What Comes Next

In China, the future is already reality — robot bartenders, fully unmanned stores. But in Europe and North America, where automation is more necessity than novelty, there’s a chance to do it differently: not louder, but smarter. Not more digital, but more human.

That’s what excites me.

Because when we integrate AR, AI, and robotics with purpose — and lead with design — we don’t just solve problems. We create new kinds of connections.

In five years, the best cafés won’t be those that removed the most humans. They’ll be the ones that reimagined what humans are there to do.

About the Author

Carsten Eriksen is CEO of Swift Creatives.