Fast-casual dining will be automated, in small towns as well as tech hubs. From touchpad ordering to robotic food prep to drone table bussing, it’s all becoming possible now and will be increasingly cost-efficient. Sure, some establishments will retain human workers for a while and used it as a selling point–dine the way your tubercular great-grandfather did!–but this aspect of affordable dining will be going and then gone. It’s good for the bottom line and horrible for Labor.

Panera’s CEO Ron Shaich recently frankly expressed doom for the sector’s workers, announcing tech initiatives aimed at supplanting them. Hopefully the chain will employ a robot capable of making coffee drinks that don’t taste like watery graves. From Bob Bryan at Business Insider:

According to Ron Shaich, founder and CEO of Panera Bread, a tech revolution is coming, and it will be bad news for many workers.

“Labor is going to go down,” Shaich said Wednesday in a quarterly earnings call. “And as digital utilization goes up — like the sun comes up in the morning — it is going to continue to go up. Digital utilization. You are seeing it happen in Panera today.

“As it happens, it’s going to benefit larger organizations like Panera, who already have the technology in place.”

Shaich’s company, Panera Bread, is in the middle of the rollout for Panera 2.0, which includes installing touch-screen ordering stations for customers at tables and the to-go line.

While rising labor costs were not the explicit impetus for the change, Shaich recognizes it is a side benefit and “one of the reasons” for the rollout.

“When we think about 2.0 — we think about digital utilization,” Shaich said according to a transcript of the call.•