The idea of robots replacing humans in the workforce has been thrown around a lot over the years. Now, it seems that the movement towards Robotic-rights took a major step forward with a restaurant that employees almost entirely machines.

The Robot Restaurant is located in China's Heilongjiang Province. Employing around 20 mechanical men, the robots pretty much run the restaurant themselves from preparing the meals to serving them to guests. There's even a robot that sings to the patrons while they eat. Humans do play an essential role, however, as the raw ingredients are pre-loaded for the robots and kept in cabinets. When something is ordered from the menu, a human presses a button that orders the robot chef to obtain the ingredients necessary to prepare the meal.

Restaurant owner Liu Hasheng told BBC that the robots were conceptualized as a means to minimize the cost of hiring employees. Though it should help in the long run, it definitely wasn't cheap purchasing twenty robots. Especially since they ran for about $31,500 and $47,000 up front.

While robots probably can't recreate the love humans put into cooking, at least they won't call in sick last minute.

H/T Business Insider