Quote:Romy, who declined to give her last name, is one of 12 virtual assistants greeting customers at a handful of restaurants in New York City, from halfway across the world.



The virtual hosts could be the vanguard of a rapidly changing restaurant industry, as small-business owners seek relief from rising commercial rents and high inflation. Others see a model rife for abuse: The remote workers are paid $3 an hour, according to their management company, while the minimum wage in the city is $16.


The workers, all based in the Philippines and projected onto flat-screen monitors via Zoom, are summoned when an often unwitting customer approaches. Despite a 12-hour time difference with the New York lunch crowd, they offer warm greetings, explain the menu and beckon guests inside.


When the virtual assistants are not helping customers, they coordinate food delivery orders, take phone calls and oversee the restaurants’ online review pages, Mr. Zhang said. They can take food orders, but they can’t manage cash transactions.



The workers are employees of Happy Cashier, not the restaurants. And Mr. Zhang said that their $3-an-hour wage was roughly double what similar roles paid in the Philippines.


Tipping policy is set by the restaurants, he said, with one giving its virtual greeters 30 percent of the pooled total each day.


The restaurant industry has long been an entry point for immigrants, and a hotbed for labor violations like wage theft.


But the Happy Cashier model is legal and minimum wage laws extend only to workers “who are physically present within the state’s geographical limits,” according to a spokesman for the New York State Department of Labor.


Mr. Zhang said he expected to quickly scale up by placing virtual assistants in more than 100 restaurants in the state by the end of the year.


The prospect is alarming, said Teófilo Reyes, the chief of staff at Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a nonprofit labor group that has pushed for a higher minimum wage in New York.


“The fact that they have found a way to outsource work to another country is extremely troubling, because it’s going to dramatically put downward pressure on wages in the industry,” he said.


The fast-food work force is already shrinking, and new technology could further transform the industry, said Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy think tank.