WATCH: Robot Serving Food at Ocean City NJ Restaurant

A popular restaurant in my favorite New Jersey beach town has a robot serving food to customers these days, at a time where many restaurants are having trouble finding help.

The restaurant is called Island Grill, at the corner of First and Atlantic Streets, near where my family has a summer rental each year. My sister and her boyfriend drove down to OCNJ over the weekend, because the weather was so nice, stopped in at Island Grill for dinner, and was shocked to see the new robot server.

The text I received from my sister was simple, but, surprising. It read, "A robot just served us dinner at Island Grill." Huh? Wow.

I did a quick Google search, and it came right up. News 12 New Jersey reported that the food serving robot even has a name...it's Little Peanut.

The owner of Island Grill, Andrew Yoa, says he's currently leasing the robot for his restaurant to serve food and bus tables. It can make several stops at a clip, delivering different orders to different tables. It even plays music. Yoa wants everyone to know, he's not taking jobs away from anyone with this robot, he's filling positions that very few people are applying for this summer.

With summer just a few weeks away, Yoa normally has about 300 applications for about 60 summer jobs by now...but, he's had only 18 people apply since the beginning of the year. I've seen "Help Wanted" signs on just about every restaurant I've eaten in and passed on the road lately. Crazy.

What a unique solution to this staffing problem. I can't wait to head down the shore and check out Little Peanut for myself.