DINING ROOM WITH A ZOOM
I’ll be your hostess . . . from the Philippines
Every cashier wants a tip these days — but what if they’re on the other side of the world?
A new restaurant chain in New York City is outsourcing staff to the Philippines, using screens with virtual hostesses on Zoom calls instead of in-person employees to greet customers and help with checkout.
The shops — which specialize in fried chicken and ramen — are taking advantage of the massive wealth gap between New York City, where the minimum wage is $16 per hour, and a Southeast Asian nation, where hourly pay is closer to $3.75.
But when customers check out at Sansan Chicken, Sansan Ramen or Yaso Kitchen — with locations in Manhattan, Queens and Jersey City — they’re still prompted to add a tip of up to 18% on top of their bill.
Giving it a try
On a recent afternoon at Sansan Chicken in Long Island City, a reporter for The Post was greeted by Pie, a 33-year-old hostess who works from her living room in the Philippine city of Subic.
The cheerful remote worker said she is employed by a company called Happy Cashier and that she enjoys her work.
Pie declined to disclose how much she was paid but said customers sometimes leave generous tips despite the fact that she’s not actually there in person.
Once, she got $40 at Yaso Kitchen in Jersey City, she said — adding that she splits tips with her manager and kitchen staff at the restaurant.
The dynamics of the operation seem to be cloaked in secrecy. It’s not clear if the hostesses work for the restaurant or a third-party company that hires them out.
It’s also not clear who owns the restaurants, and how much the hostesses are getting paid.
The Post could not reach the businesses’ owner, and employees would not divulge information about their bosses when a reporter asked.
Despite the fact that the new restaurants are combining two of Americans’ least favorite things — tipping and outsourcing jobs — it may be the future of customer service, says one tech expert.
Brett Goldstein, a 33-year-old tech entrepreneur who posted about Sansan Chicken on Mercer Street in Greenwich Village in a now-viral thread on X, pointed out that the virtual staffers are a “clear way to cut costs” that could lead to even more weirdly dystopian advances in the future.
“Today, this is a Filipino woman behind a screen, controlling a POS system — but it’s not crazy to believe that probably in the next six to 12 months, this could be an AI avatar doing all the same things,” he said.
He acknowledged that tipping could be a huge bonus for the outsourced workers — who live in a country where the median monthly wage is just $325 a month.
Pie, who has been working the job for about six months, appears to cover three different restaurants at the same time by alternating between different screens.
The virtual hostesses are part of the restaurant’s allure, she said.
“Customers come in and are surprised to find a virtual cashier,” she said. “Some people think we’re [artificial intelligence] — they ask you if you’re real.”
At least a few customers appreciated the novelty.
Customer feedback
“It’s definitely interesting and different,” Dan O’Keefe, a 34year-old conductor for MetroNorth, told The Post.
“I thought it was fun.”
Not everything runs smoothly all the time, however.
A reporter who tried to order coffee at the Yaso Kitchen in Long Island City was met only with confused stares from the virtual hostess there — despite a sign on the window advertising the drink.
Ismael Oquendo, a 34-year-old teacher from The Bronx, wasn’t fond of the whole concept.
“Human interaction is way better than video,” he told The Post.
steve.janoski@nypost.com