Fried chicken is in New York but cashier is in the Philippines

At Sansan Chicken in Long Island City, Queens, the cashier beamed a wide smile and recommended the fried chicken sandwich. Or maybe she suggested the tonkatsu - it was hard to tell as the internet connection from her home in the Philippines was spotty.

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Ms 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 ripe for abuse. The remote workers are paid US$3 (S$4) an hour, according to their management company, while the minimum wage in the city is US$16.

The workers, all based in the Philippines and projected onto flatscreen 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. But sceptical customers said they were not eager to join this particular Zoom meeting.

"You hear 'hello' and you say, 'What the (expletive) is that?"" said Ms Shania Ortiz, 25, recalling a recent trip to Sansan Ramen, a neighbouring Japanese restaurant that had a flat-screen monitor set up in the foyer with a surveillance camera trained on guests.

"I never engage," she said.

The service is the brainchild of Mr Chi Zhang, 34, the founder of Happy Cashier, a virtual-assistant company that was thrust into the spotlight last week, when a social media post about the overseas workers went viral.

He was caught off guard. The programme has been quietly tested since October 2023, but the company's website has not yet been set up.

The technology is already available in stores in Queens, Manhattan and Jersey City, New Jersey, including at Sansan Ramen, its sister store Sansan Chicken, and Yaso Kitchen, a Chinese soup dumpling spot.