If you’ve stopped by Maricopa’s QuikTrip in recent weeks, you’ve probably noticed a new face roaming around the store. 

Or at least a pair of blinking, backlit eyes. 

Those belong to the Pringle Robotics CC1 Multipurpose Floor Cleaning Robot, to be exact. The bot, which stands about knee high, does wet and dry floor cleaning on multiple surfaces, self-cleans, self-charges and runs on an automatic schedule. 

Basically, he’s the size of a toddler but orders of magnitude more autonomous — and willing to take on endless chores. 

The Tulsa-based convenience store and gas station brand QT began deploying robots to locations around the country roughly two months ago and the cleaning bot has since arrived in Maricopa. 

QuikTrip’s local assistant manager Gideon Bialach gave InMaricopa the lowdown on Pringle.  

“We recently got our [robot] and it works great,” he said. “It takes itself around the store, empties and refills itself, it talks around the store.” 

Yes, talks. When it approaches a human or other obstruction, Pringle blinks and offers a cheerful greeting: “I’m cleaning the floors, thank you for shopping at QuikTrip.” 

The cleaning robot does its rounds sweeping and mopping every four hours. It also attracts curious customers, Bialach said. 

“A lot of people like it, to be honest … 99% of the time, everybody loves it. It doesn’t hit nobody, it gets out of everybody’s way. [Customers] like to record it,” he said. 

Pringle isn’t the only robot to be employed in Maricopa.  

In late 2022, Robbie the Robot joined the staff at the nearby Denny’s as a backup server who doesn’t need to be tipped. Robbie is able to navigate to correct tables to deliver up to three trays of food and drinks.   

At the time, at least one Denny’s server said he wasn’t concerned about losing his job and saw the robot as more of a friendly customer draw to the restaurant. 

The diner chain introduced the Bear Robotics Servi model in 2021 to “take over some of the (literal) heavy lifting for human servers, who can then focus on customer service,” according to Ottomate.