Published: 14 May 2025.
by Gerry Gaffney
In the old days, if you visited our little café you would see groups sitting at tables, both inside and on the pavement. Some played backgammon, but most sat drinking coffee or wine or beer, often with a light meal.
Once upon a time many of them would have been using a free hand to fidget with their worry beads - their komboloi - but these were quickly replaced by the smartphone, so now instead they scrolled and tapped and sometimes even made phone calls.
Running a kafenio is not easy. You have to be there, managing things, the whole time. You can't really rely on staff to have your best interests at heart, so it's hard to take a break for more than a couple of days. Sure, they might make a bit extra on tips if they work more diligently but it's not America, they're getting paid anyway.
The costs never come down. Customers can be fickle. Add 20 cent to the cost of a coffee and you lose a couple of regulars. Change the mezzedes just a little and lose a couple more. The rent never goes down, or the insurance or the electricity bills. And you have to make your money during the season; not many places manage to make a profit all year round. So we're always watching the bottom line and trying to walk the fine line between minimising expenditure and providing a good service.
We had Dmitri for nearly two years. We taught him how to make a decent coffee, how to keep the kitchen area clean, how to operate the till and so on. And he got on well with the customers. Friendly but not too friendly. Polite. Reasonably attentive. He could be a little lax sometimes. Especially if he was involved with a new girl. Sometimes he called at the last moment to say he wouldn't be in that day.
Although Nick and I complained to each other about him, we also didn't want to lose him. It's hard to get good staff and if he left we'd have to find someone new and start all over again to train them. So we let things ride. We had other casual staff come in and cover from time to time, but we didn't have anyone on hand to take over if Dmitri moved on.
Until Winston.
TessL8, the robot company, decided to launch in Greece. I don't know why Greece particularly. Maybe because it was far enough from the US that if things went badly they could walk away. Maybe because of the support of the Greek government as part of its modernisation drive. Maybe because the CEO was sleeping with someone high up in the Ministry of Tourism. Who knows? In any case, Greece is where they launched, and soon after the big announcement we had a sales rep at our counter, showing us personalised slides and projections for our little business, how much we could save by having an android, how we could increase our income, stay open longer hours.
I have to admit that both Nick and I were impressed with her. She obviously knew a bit about our little kafenio, and the sorts of issues we faced. Though on reflection it was probably pretty generic because lots of other people would be in the same boat. Just change the logo and a few key details on the slides and it looked like she actually cared about us specifically.
"We couldn't possibly afford an android," Nick told her. "There's no point talking to us about it."
"But this is where you're wrong," she assured us.
Not only would there be zero up-front cost, but because of favourable government treatment, our leasing costs would be tax-deductible.
She showed us videos. An android wearing a white shirt and server apron tending tables in a high-end restaurant. An android in shorts and t-shirt working at a beach-front café. An android stacking chairs, washing dishes, cleaning a kitchen.
"And the android performs with 98% accuracy," she told us. "Do you think a human could match that?"
We didn't.
"But we already have Dmitri," we told her.
"And there's no reason why you can't keep him," she told us. "He can do the work he's best at, and that he likes best, and use the android to be his helper. Bring in extra business, serve more tables, for practically zero extra cost."
Nick and I talked about it. The rep had told us she was only in town for a few days. While she didn't exactly pressure us, she made it clear that it would be harder so sign up later, and probably more expensive. She was very persuasive.
Dmitri, I have to admit, wasn't too keen when he heard that we'd ordered the android, but we tried to present it in the same way as the sales rep had - an assistant for him so that he could offload some of his tasks and spend more time doing the work he liked best.
The android was called Winston, according to the instructions that came in the box.
When we unpacked him he was only partially charged and we plugged him in as instructed.
When he was fully fired up the three of us, Nick, Dmitri and I, stood around curiously.
"Say something to him," said Nick.
"Stand up," said Dmitri.
The android swivelled its head from side to side, following whoever was speaking. He - it - stood up and said Hello. From that moment on I think we all regarded Winston as a male person, rather than a neuter object.
It didn't take long for us to put Winston to work. Dmitri told him to clean the kitchen, and showed him where the various detergents and cleaning implements were kept. We all stood back and watched him clean. From time to time he would encounter a problem and ask for advice or help. He was invariably polite.
He didn't clean as well as one of us would, but we agreed that for a first attempt he'd done pretty well. At that time of course we were not aware that he would never get much better.
We decided that for the first few days we'd keep Winston out of sight, back of house, away from the customers, and introduce him gradually to the waiting work.
The first inkling of a problem came when we got him to take the crockery out of the dishwasher and stack it. In the process he dropped and broke a cup. Although he quickly cleaned up the mess, I wasn't happy about losing crockery, and I was even more unhappy when he dropped a plate the next time he was given the same task.
I called the number the sales rep had given me for support. I got through to a bot and explained the problem with breakages.
"How many items were in the dishwasher?" it asked me.
I had no idea. I guessed, "Maybe 100?"
"Then the android is operating within specified parameters," the bot told me. "If it dropped one item in 100, that's 99% accuracy. 1% better than its specification."
Before I really had time to digest this, I remembered another question.
"Can we change his name from Winston?" I asked.
This was something Nick and I were quite keen on. Our customers were used to dealing with serves who had Greek, or sometimes Albanian, names. "We'd like to change it to something like Niko or Costa or George," I said.
"Winston's name is part of his personality," I was told. "It is the name imprinted on him when he was constructed. We do not recommend changing it."
"So we can't change it?"
"In order to change it, we would have to administer a firmware update."
"Oh, so we can change it?"
"The cost of the firmware update is 300 euro."
We decided to stick with Winston.
The bot had a suggestion before we hung up. "If you want zero breakages, you could ensure that that Winston only handles non-breakable items. For example, cutlery."
Nick suggested afterwards that he could go online and see if there were any hacks available to update the firmware ourselves. I was against the thought of hacking into Winston so he dropped the idea.
Over the following weeks Dmitri became disenchanted working with an android and he quit his job. This wasn't entirely unexpected. If I'm honest, it wasn't entirely unwelcome either. We thought we could get Winston to take over all of Dmitri's tasks, though probably with a few hiccups along the way.
Unfortunately it transpired that the broken crockery was indicative of Winston's work in general. He could do everything really well most of the time. He could make Greek coffees and Americanos and frappés perfectly most of the time. He could greet customers by name and take their orders correctly and take payments and make change correctly most of the time. Always operating within specified parameters.
But we had to make accommodations for the 1% or 2% of the time when he did something wrong. After he scalded Gina, one of our long-time regulars, by dropping a cup of coffee in her lap, we reduced the temperature of the water we used. We double-checked every order he took before we allowed him to fulfil it. We supervised his cleaning duties and filled in any omissions ourselves.
Eventually we decided that Winston was in fact bad for business. Even though he rarely addressed people by the wrong name, or served them the wrong drink or snack, even though he only rarely left a customer completely unattended, even though he rarely knocked over a table or a tray of drinks, rarely left the fridge door open or the water running, it was often enough that almost every day contained at least one minor disaster and the quality of our customer service was definitely falling.
I spoke to the bot and said we wanted to return Winston. The bot said it would pass our request to the sales rep, who called and made an appointment to see us.
She sounded upset and surprised that we were unhappy with Winston.
"It sounds like teething problems," she said.
"After two months?"
"Maybe you need to put it, him I mean, on less demanding duties."
"There's not much point having a robot waiter if it can't wait," Nick said.
Finally she told us that in order to return Winston we would have to break his lease, which would involve a penalty payment.
"So we just keep paying and keep him unplugged in the basement?"
"I guess so," she said, suddenly unsympathetic.
"Typical sales person," said Nick, after she left.
"Do you think we should unplug him?" I asked.
Nick glanced over at Winston, who was watching with apparent interest.
"It doesn't feel right to do that," I said. Nick agreed.
Over the next few days we pondered, and we spoke to other proprietors in town. It turned out that they were having similar problems, and facing the choice of penalty payments or retiring their androids.
Eventually we came to a resolution that seemed humane.
Today if you visit our little café you will see Winston among the groups sitting at tables, both inside and on the pavement. Some play backgammon, but most sit drinking coffee or wine or beer. They have a little money to spend because the mayor's office disburses a small stipend to each retired android.
Most of them use a free hand to fidget with their worry beads - their komboloi. They don't use smartphones because they are online anyway and already know everything they need to know about the world.
Tomorrow the little groups will move down the street to Deja Vu Café. We share it around so that the chaos and cost doesn't fall disproportionately on any one business.
Dmitri is back. We had to give him a pay increase, so our costs have gone up, and I think it's fair to say that our little robot experiment could not be considered a success.
Maybe a country like America would be more comfortable unplugging its unproductive elements. There, you would probably not see claques of androids playing bad backgammon, spilling drinks and dropping worry beads. We, however, have grown accustomed to them and they are as much a part of our lives as the old men arguing politics or the cats roaming the streets or the dogs lying in the doorways dreaming of better days.
Copyright © Gerry Gaffney 2025