I tried to eat at all the Bay Area robot restaurants. They were almost all broken.

I set out to try all the robot restaurants in the Bay Area. It was harder than I thought I set out to try all the robot restaurants in the Bay Area. It was harder than I thought Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate; Getty Images, Kiwi Bot Buy photo Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate; Getty Images, Kiwi Bot Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close I tried to eat at all the Bay Area robot restaurants. They were almost all broken. 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

If the robot takeover is going to start anywhere, it's very, very likely going to start in the Bay Area.

More than 17,000 robots are employed in the state of California according to a 2015 Brookings Institute study and nearly 500 robotics companies call the Bay Area home.

With the launch of each new robot in local storefronts or food courts comes a slew of press coverage, present company included. We're collectively fascinated by how they work, if they work, and if it looks cool on Instagram. But after a few weeks or months, the fawning subsides and then what happens?

Ahead of the journalism robots arriving, I decided to find out.

First stop: the TeaBOT, a robot kiosk that debuted in 2015. It was built to blend teas and brew them to order.

I sleuth around Westfield Mall in San Francisco trying to find the bot — it's usually located on the fourth floor near the Bespoke co-working space. I pop my head in to ask the Bespoke receptionist if she's seen the TeaBot around lately.

"It's supposed to be over there," she says, gesturing.

It's not over there.

We have a mystery on our hands, friends.

Disappointed but undeterred in my quest for caffeine, I cross the street to Cafe X, a robotic barista that's been stationed in the food court of the Metreon since 2017. But, lo and behold: The robot's undergoing maintenance and is temporarily out of service. No oat milk matcha latte for me.

It's a full day later and I'm at Eatsa, an automated restaurant that's been serving salads and grain bowls since 2016. In what was starting to become a full-on farce, I find the windows blacked out with a sign reading "UPDATE IN PROGRESS" on the front doors. Their second location, a few blocks away, looks exactly the same.

On to Berkeley, and inside the delivery range of KiwiBot, a little roving robot that has been delivering hungry college kids takeout from local restaurants since 2017. Not only is the app glitchy and hard to use — stop me if you've heard this before — it doesn't work. It isn't until checkout when I realize delivery isn't an option, which kind of defeats ... the point?

After four failures in quick succession, I'm confused. And hungry. What's going on?

There are two logical explanation I could think of:

Logical Explanation 1: The robots are smarter than we thought, unionizing and striking for better working conditions.

Logical Explanation 2: This technology is very much a work in progress.

To be fair, not every one of my robot endeavors was a failure. I had a juicy burger made by a mesmerizing automated assembly line at Creator, slurped a surprisingly flavorful bowl of black garlic oil ramen from a vending machine at the Metreon, and ordered delivery pizza in under 30 minutes from semi-robotic Zume Pizza.

Which is when it occurs to me: most of my positive experiences over the past week were with the robot restaurant operations that involved more real-life people. At Creator, for example, you're immediately greeted by a person who takes your order. The kitchen is buzzing with staff to stock the burger-making robot and your order is packaged up and handed to you by another person. It's my hunch that all those employees are the real reason things went off without a hitch.

Every time I went to one of the robot restaurants, I was relieved when it even worked. The bar is so much higher when people are making your food. Customers at normal restaurants will leave a bad Yelp review if their burger is medium-well instead of well done, or if it takes longer than 90 seconds for their check to arrive. Robots are supposed to be more reliable, consistent and eliminate human error, but I found myself lowering the bar for what constituted a successful robot restaurant experience.

And then lowering it again.

I guess the good news is, we can all breathe easy. A future where robots are waiting tables, delivering packages, or driving us around seems far off. Maybe things will just keep chugging along the old-fashioned way, treating people in the service industry like robots. They don't get nearly enough breaks for "routine maintenance."

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A few thoughts on the robot restaurants I actually got to try:

— Cafe X: Despite my failure to get Cafe X last week, I've tried it several times before and am generally a fan. I especially like their matcha latte. Here's way more detail from my colleague.

— Creator: Decent, flavorful burger for $6. Important to note they didn't appear to have any non-beef patty options (no veggie burgers and the like). More from The Chronicle's Soleil Ho.

— Zume Pizza: The delivery area is limited to parts of the South Bay and Peninsula for now. The two types of pizza I tried, margherita and barbecue chicken, were both pretty disappointing. However, they were cheaper than comparable delivery options at Domino's, so I could see myself ordering again for a group of children or drunk adults who don't know better. It was also delivered in under 30 minutes, which I think is impressive. The Italian salad and the salted chocolate chip cookie I was pressured into adding into my order were both really good.

— Yo-Kai Express: The black garlic oil ramen was hot, flavorful and quick. But it was $13 for a smaller portion than you'd typically get at a sit-down restaurant.

— LeBread Xpress: This vending machine at Stonestown Galleria is one of the most impressive I tried. It delivered a fresh baguette that won a blind taste test. Read more here.

Here's the deal on the ones I didn't get to try:

— TeaBOT: After failing to find the TeaBOT on two separate visits, I reached out to the company and asked where it went. A spokesperson headquartered in Canada said the bot is "occasionally moved for events," but wasn't sure if that was the case now.

— Eatsa: The company declined to offer any additional details on what the "update in progress" entailed. According to Eater, the restaurant owes $24,000 in overdue rent to its landlord and likely won't reopen.

— KiwiBot: A spokesperson for the company explained KiwiBot ceases delivery operations during the summer when school at UC Berkeley is not in session. They expect to resume shortly before the fall semester starts up.

Alix Martichoux is an SFGate supervising producer. Read her latest stories and send her news tips at alix.martichoux@sfgate.com.