Monkey waiters - cute, efficient, and no attitude

Updated

I enjoy waiters that reach out to connect with me -- sit down next to me to take my order, call me Hon, I don't mind. However, all too often today's waiters barely glance at me, instead keeping up a running conversation with other staff people.

That's only one reason I'm excited by the newest staff members at the Kayabukiya Tavern in Tokyo. There, a pair of Japanese macaque monkeys wait on customers, taking and delivering the customer's spoken drink orders.
Yat-chan and Fuku-chan, dressed in shirt and shorts, also present customers with the traditional hot towel for hand wiping.

The two, which work with the approval and oversight of local authorities, are on duty two hours a day, all that is allowed by animal rights regulation. They are tipped in soybeans, although the article doesn't say how many soybeans constitute 15%.

Which restaurant would you guess will be the first to employee monkey waiters in the U.S.? And if they can wait on tables, perhaps we can put them to work on Wall Street, too. Could they do much worse?

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