At Sansan Hen in Lengthy Island Metropolis, Queens, the cashier beamed a large smile and beneficial the fried hen sandwich.

Or possibly she recommended the tonkatsu — it was laborious to inform, as a result of the web connection from her residence within the Philippines was spotty.

Romy, who declined to offer her final identify, is considered one of 12 digital assistants greeting clients at a handful of eating places in New York Metropolis, from midway the world over.

The digital hosts could possibly be the vanguard of a quickly altering restaurant business, as small-business house owners search aid from rising business rents and excessive inflation. Others see a mannequin ripe for abuse: The distant staff are paid $3 an hour, in line with their administration firm, whereas the minimal wage within the metropolis is $16.

The employees, all primarily based within the Philippines and projected onto flat-screen screens by way of Zoom, are summoned when an usually unwitting buyer approaches. Regardless of a 12-hour time distinction with the New York lunch crowd, they provide heat greetings, clarify the menu and beckon visitors inside.

However skeptical clients stated they weren’t keen to affix this explicit Zoom assembly.

“You hear ‘good day’ and also you say, ‘What the hell is that?’” Shania Ortiz, 25, recalled of a latest journey to Sansan Ramen, a neighboring Japanese restaurant that had a gold-framed, flat-screen monitor arrange within the lobby with a surveillance digicam educated on visitors. “I by no means have interaction,” she stated.

The service is the brainchild of Chi Zhang, 34, the founding father of Completely satisfied Cashier, a virtual-assistant firm that was thrust into the highlight final week, when a social media post in regards to the abroad staff went viral.

He was caught off guard. This system has been quietly examined since October, however the firm’s web site has not but been arrange. The expertise is already available in shops in Queens, Manhattan and Jersey Metropolis, N.J., together with at Sansan Ramen, its sister retailer, Sansan Hen, and Yaso Kitchen, a Chinese language soup dumpling spot. Two different Chinese language eating places utilizing the service on Lengthy Island requested to not be named, he stated.

Mr. Zhang is a former proprietor of Yaso Tangbao, a Shanghainese restaurant in Downtown Brooklyn that closed throughout the coronavirus pandemic. He stated the expertise strengthened the concept eating places have been being squeezed by excessive rents and inflation, and {that a} virtual-assistant mannequin, considerably akin to that employed by abroad name facilities, might assist maximize small retail areas and enhance retailer effectivity.

When the digital assistants should not serving to clients, they coordinate meals supply orders, take cellphone calls and oversee the eating places’ on-line assessment pages, Mr. Zhang stated. They’ll take meals orders, however they will’t handle money transactions.

The employees are workers of Completely satisfied Cashier, not the eating places. And Mr. Zhang stated that their $3-an-hour wage was roughly double what related roles paid within the Philippines.

Tipping coverage is ready by the eating places, he stated, with one giving its digital greeters 30 p.c of the pooled complete every day.

The restaurant business has lengthy been an entry level for immigrants, and a hotbed for labor violations like wage theft.

However the Completely satisfied Cashier mannequin is authorized and minimal wage legal guidelines lengthen solely to staff “who’re bodily current inside the state’s geographical limits,” in line with a spokesman for the New York State Division of Labor.

Mr. Zhang stated he anticipated to shortly scale up by putting digital assistants in additional than 100 eating places within the state by the top of the yr.

The prospect is alarming, stated Teófilo Reyes, the chief of employees at Restaurant Alternatives Facilities United, a nonprofit labor group that has pushed for the next minimal wage in New York.

“The truth that they’ve discovered a solution to outsource work to a different nation is extraordinarily troubling, as a result of it’s going to dramatically put downward strain on wages within the business,” he stated.

The fast-food work pressure is already shrinking, and new expertise might additional rework the business, stated Jonathan Bowles, the chief director of the Heart for an City Future, a public coverage suppose tank.

Quick-food eating places in New York Metropolis had a mean of 8.5 workers in 2022, he stated, down from 9.23 in 2019, earlier than the pandemic.

Digital assistants have grow to be widespread in customer support and company settings, however are uncommon within the hands-on restaurant enterprise.

One latest exception got here from Freshii, a Canadian restaurant model that faced a backlash in 2022 over claims of outsourcing jobs, after partnering with a digital cashier enterprise known as Percy.

Mr. Zhang stated his enterprise was totally different. “It’s a service, we’re offering a instrument. It’s as much as them learn how to use this,” he stated of his restaurant purchasers.

Brett Goldstein, 33, a founding father of a man-made intelligence firm who made the viral submit in regards to the digital staff, stated some commenters had described the mannequin as dystopian whereas many others had been intrigued.

On the Sansan Hen in Manhattan’s East Village, Rosy Tang, 30, a supervisor, praised the service.

“It is a approach for small companies to outlive,” she stated, including that the price and area financial savings it supplied might permit her so as to add a small espresso stall to the shop.

In follow, nonetheless, quirks with the mannequin abound.

On the Sansan Hen in Queens, the digital assistant couldn’t assist a reporter order a sandwich with out cheese on a contact pad menu. The assistant stated the reporter ought to order from the in-person employees members on the Sansan Ramen subsequent door, which shares a kitchen with the hen restaurant.

Will Jang, 30, an affiliate at Goldman Sachs, had lunch on Wednesday on the Yaso Kitchen in Jersey Metropolis — and fully ignored his digital hostess, Amber.

“I assumed it was some commercial,” just like the prerecorded movies in taxi cabs, he stated.

Amber, who didn’t give her final identify, took it in stride. After learning enterprise administration in faculty, she stated she labored in-person at a fast-food restaurant. She began this digital job three months in the past.

“It’s my first time to work in a work-from-home setup,” she stated in entrance of a digital backdrop emblazoned with mustachioed cartoon dumplings.

When requested the place residence was, she demurred.

“I’m sorry, I can’t share any extra private particulars with you,” she stated. “Can I take your order?”

Nate Schweber contributed reporting.