Finally an end to the perennial waiter problem. If these girls insist on topping up your glass every time you raise it to your lips you can simply ask for them to be rebooted.

At the Dalu Rebot Restaurant, in Jinan, northern China’s Shandong Province, they’ve got six robot waitresses who they claim can serve up to 100 diners

Unfortunately these are not the free moving robots we were promised by Tomorrow’s World in the 70’s and they don’t even wear cute uniforms. Instead they follow invisible tracks around a fixed route of 21 tables delivering a Chinese hotpot before rumbling back to the kitchen to get refilled.

Apparently humans are still employed for the crucial international restaurant tasks of not answering the phone to take reservations and not finding your reservation in the book when you finally arrive.

PS Our photo may not be an exact representation of the robots involved, unfortunately.