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I’ve heard the idea of automated restaurants for a long time, but there are still overhead costs and labor costs. You would still need proper permits/licenses

I’ve heard the idea of automated restaurants for a long time, but there are still overhead costs and labor costs. You would still need proper permits/licenses and real estate/rent. Insurance. Utilities. The prep and cooking of the ingredients still needs to be done, and then those items transported in a chilled/heated manner for food safety. And if there are perishable goods like produce or meat, the machine will need to be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized regularly, which would require labor, a sink, etc. Unsold food at the end of the day needs to be stored/chilled properly back at the central kitchen. Ingredients will need reloading, machines may get jammed, etc. So it doesn’t seem like it will be labor-free. Even in the best case scenario, like the sandwiches or muffins at Starbucks, or even deli items at the grocery store, the prices aren’t all that low, so I am curious to see if this can be done profitably.

kolchinski 6y ago
Yep agreed on all of those counts. We're designing the machine and operation to keep costs low and reliability high. E.g. ingredients are pre-prepped in the central kitchen and then transported refrigerated to the auto-kitchens. The mechanism is designed for easy cleaning and refilling upstream and reliable operation in the auto-kitchen. It's one of the only parts of our machine that's totally custom; we've filed a patent on it because we think it gives us a significant leg up over previous approaches. Food safety is also a huge deal to us; we've been working closely with regulators from almost day 1 to make sure that our approach is even safer than a traditional restaurant (less room for error.) And rent is also a plus for our approach: a parking spot costs less to rent than commercial real estate!
- ISL 6y ago
  The zoning for a parking lot is often different from that for an eatery, no?
- imtringued 6y ago
  Have you thought about installing your machine into a food truck?

kolchinski 6y ago

Yep agreed on all of those counts. We're designing the machine and operation to keep costs low and reliability high. E.g. ingredients are pre-prepped in the central kitchen and then transported refrigerated to the auto-kitchens. The mechanism is designed for easy cleaning and refilling upstream and reliable operation in the auto-kitchen. It's one of the only parts of our machine that's totally custom; we've filed a patent on it because we think it gives us a significant leg up over previous approaches. Food safety is also a huge deal to us; we've been working closely with regulators from almost day 1 to make sure that our approach is even safer than a traditional restaurant (less room for error.) And rent is also a plus for our approach: a parking spot costs less to rent than commercial real estate!

ISL 6y ago
The zoning for a parking lot is often different from that for an eatery, no?
imtringued 6y ago
Have you thought about installing your machine into a food truck?