Will 2023 Be the Year of the Robot?

Fueled by worker shortages and rising labor costs in recent years, restaurants turned to robots for a helping hand.

Some of the latest to do so are Chipotle Mexican Grill, which is testing whether a robot can make tortilla chips in stores, and Sweetgreen, which plans to automate salad making in at least two locations, CNBC reported. Additionally, Inspire Brands announced in a press release that the Buffalo Wild Wings franchise is testing Flippy Wings (nicknamed Wingy), a robotic chicken wing fryer designed for high-volume restaurants.

Many of this year’s robot-related announcements came from Miso Robotics, which is behind Wingy, as well as Flippy, a robot that can be programmed to flip burgers or make chicken wings, which has been used most notably by White Castle. Miso says that Wingy can “result in a 10% to 20% increase in food production speed,” as well as “eliminate several hot touchpoints and drastically decrease oil spillage,” which could be a draw for franchisors looking to streamline operations.

However, with spotty results so far, experts say it will be years before robots pay off for companies or take the place of workers.

“I think there’s a lot of experimentation that is going to lead us somewhere at some point, but we’re still a very labor-intensive, labor-driven industry,” said David Henkes, a principal at Technomic, a restaurant research firm.

Once these types of robots do become mainstream in the restaurant world, some experts believe that there’s no going back. For example, Casey Warman, an economics professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, expects the industry’s push for automation will permanently shrink its workforce.

“Once the machines are in place, they’re not going to go backwards, especially if there’s large cost savings,” he said.