It looks like nobody learned the lessons of Juicero. Spending millions of dollars to create special-purpose robots that can make a grain bowl that can triviall

It looks like nobody learned the lessons of Juicero. Spending millions of dollars to create special-purpose robots that can make a grain bowl that can trivially be prepared by humans. The cost of the robot would exceed multiple years of annual salaries for a full restaurant of this nature. And you didn't even manage to eliminate the need for human employees: you still need employees to maintain and service the machine, to clean up the facilities, to stand by when the machine fails, and to drive the robots around. And those employees will also be more specialized, and thus more expensive to pay, then the cheap line workers they would theoretically be replacing. Plus, there's the central food kitchen where humans would be doing the bulk of the actual food prep work. Your other statements support the idea that you guys don't actually know how restaurants (or restaurateurs) work, and you're acting like being Stanford grad students gives you some sort of amazing insight that nobody else in the restaurant industry has thought of before, like digital signage (which every new restaurant in the past few years already uses), or using food trucks in parking lots to avoid paying for rent (food trucks have been around for a decade), or partnering with restaurant chains and chefs (few if any of whom would partner with you because it would irrevocably damage their brands). And let's ignore the magically fuzzy math on how a special purpose grain bowl robot is somehow cheaper than spending 5 minutes on training somebody to put grains, then toppings, then sauce, or how spending millions on robots up-front before the restaurant succeeds is somehow financially more prudent then paying for labor costs on an operational basis where said labor can be increased or reduced as necessary. Like most restaurant chains, we do the bulk of our prep in a central kitchen Yes, fast food restaurant chains do this. Not salad chains, because there's a limited shelf life for freshness once you prepare grains and greens. It's measured in minutes. Nobody wants to eat limp greens or stale grains. You've basically just stated that your food will never be fresh, and that's an absolute restaurant killer in the healthy food space. eventually develop multiple concepts so each auto-kitchen rotates to a new menu on a regular cadence. Many restaurants have launched with this idea. Few stick with it, because food waste is the second biggest controllable expense after labor costs. Changing the menu regularly means more food waste. So, all in all, you've just created a business model doomed to failure: high startup costs, high operational costs, high prices or unrealistic VC-funded below-market pricing, and stale food. This might work in the Bay Area, but it won't take off anywhere else. My advice would be to pivot away from this "special purpose" grain bowl maker and make something useful. Like a general purpose arm that can do everything a human chef could do. That would be valuable.