Happy Friday dear readers!

Many of you are too young to remember this, but back in my day, there was a wonderful comedian by the name of Yakov Smirnoff, who often quipped about life in the Soviet Union as compared to the United States, himself being an immigrant.  He once joked that Taco Bell was banned from the U.S.S.R. since the start of their advertising slogan: “run for the border.”

And that brings us to today’s post.  No, no, dear readers, Borders Bookstores is never coming back, so don’t get your hopes up.  But Taco Bell posted something rather interesting to LinkedIn (thanks to reader JJ for the link!)  it would appear that Taco Bell is diving head first into replacing life employees with kiosks to automate ordering, having already deployed more than 4,500.

Now this isn’t limited to California, of course, but Taco Bell does have a lot of California locations, and each kiosk can effectively replace 1-3 jobs, right?  And, of course, kiosks don’t file workers’ comp claims and don’t seek overtime pay.  They also are in sync with a growing desire to avoid human interaction as much as possible…

So what does your humble blogger predict by peering into his Buffalo Trace Bourbon crystal ball?  This is going to show as a proof of concept for the multitude of competitions in the fast food industry.  These kiosks will render a better experience for customers because of fewer ordering errors, capacity for multiple languages, and greater display abilities for choices, while also saving money for the employer.  Win-win.

Now, who among you is so inclined to give these kiosks a test drive over the weekend and send a report to your humble blogger of the results?