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No staff? No problem! First zero-personnel café to open in Budapest
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Imagine a store you can walk into, grab something to eat or drink, and then walk out, without standing in line to pay or scanning your items yourself. Sounds futuristic, but the technology to make it possible already exists, and it is coming to Hungary in a few months.
According to g7.hu, the café-slash-sandwich bar, aptly named Take it Easy, is planned to open on the 1st of July at Agora Park. Using a solution developed by the American company AiFi, the entire shop area will be monitored by cameras, relaying the images to software capable of identifying what exactly customers are doing.
The system will label and track each person to enter throughout the time they spend in-store, but it will not require personal data, making it fully compliant with European data protection regulations.
The program will calculate the value of all items taken out of the café or consumed on-site and deduct the money from customers’ bank accounts. Patrons will need to either download an application and register their bank cards there or swipe them on the installed card reader as they enter the store.
- Read also: How to protect yourself when shopping online
The company bringing the concept to Hungary is Kende Gastro Zrt., and if their plans work out, this café will be the first in a line of automated shops. As founder Gábor Kende explained,
My father was a photographer in downstate New York and he would often take my brother and myself with him on his trips to the “Peerless” camera store on Lexington Ave. in Manhattan. We would usually have lunch at the Automat, an automated chain operated by Horn & Hardart. Great memories. The location later became a Burger King and the camera store is still there under a different name.