Robo Restaurant: Concept of the Future, or Already Here?

While robots in restaurants’ kitchens may sound like the plotline of a sci-fi movie, technology is actually elevating food safety in our restaurants and other food businesses,” according to an article in QSR. This technology includes “Flippy, the world’s first burger-flipping robot, “launched March at a Caliburger restaurant in California” and capable of grilling 150 burgers per hour; the MIT-engineered robot kitchen of Spyce, a restaurant in Boston, where “seven automated woks cook guests’ meals in three minutes or less,” and more, according to the article.

In an age where food contamination, inefficiency and waste can sound the death knells for a restaurant concept, the option to automate elements of the business is especially appealing.

“There’s a major trend in the food service industry to remove humans from safety management and replace them with technological solutions, such as robots and sensors,” the article said. “In fact, tech tools—robotics and artificial intelligence, data analytics, the Internet of Things, etc.—are already having huge, positive implications for supply chain management and food safety. This is just the beginning,” according to the article.