Oh man, you couldn't be any more wrong. They are already moving kiosks and mobile purchasing into fast food restaurants. http://www.neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-o

Oh man, you couldn't be any more wrong. They are already moving kiosks and mobile purchasing into fast food restaurants. http://www.neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen-kiosks-to-replace-cashiers http://www.neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen... This is from 2011, so it doesn't seem like it's going terribly well. It's difficult to automate the remaining steps in food prep (though it's possible and they are working on it) for a host of reasons. Food prep involves insuring that the food is properly loaded, set at the right temperature. There is a visual inspection of the food itself by the line cooks that probably would still need to be done. It's cooked on no less than 2 grills, and 3 vats (fries, fish, nuggets are all usually kept separate), an oven, a microwave, bun toaster and pancake grill. That doesn't get into the host of drink machines, salads and non-grill items being made. Now theoretically, you can get rid of the warmers as there won't be a need to queue things (even this is not certain as margins are tight to be wasting money on idle machines just to handle peak hours). Also all of this equipment must be completely cleaned top to bottom -- in particular between the switchover from breakfast to lunch and vice versa. Vats of oil and grease must be dealt with. Right now, minimum wage employees are pretty cheap compared to design and implementation of machines that can handle the breadth of most fast food restaurants. Most of the work of automation of cooking has been to do the work prior to sending it to the restaurant (precooked fries is one example). Lots of that simply can't be done without seriously sacrificing quality. I realize people think that McDonalds doesn't care, but they know boundaries they can push, and things like precooking meats apparently hasn't taken off much because it makes a terrible product and they lose sales. It will be a while until you say goodbye to the two (maybe three!) cooks working for 9 or 10 dollars an hour making food. It will happen, but it's more likely to happen first at restaurants that offer a much, much smaller menu than the big fast food restaurants have right now.