I ate at a place once where you ordered into a mic at your table and an overhead model train would carry your food straight from the kitchen. Apparently this was implemented as a cost-saving move during the Depression when they couldn't afford to hire servers, but they kept it around as a gimmick.

Japan already has massive vending machines to replace convenience stores, and supermarkets have more and more self-checkouts as quickly as store redesigns (and, I would imagine, grocers' unions) will allow.