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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Behind the Bot

Starship Raises Another $17M, Adds UCLA and Announces its Millionth Delivery

Delivery robot company Starship announced today that it has raised an additional $17 million in funding. Investors include TDK Ventures and Goodyear Ventures, and this brings the total amount raised by Starship to $102 million.

As part of today’s announcement, Starship also said that it has now completed 1 million autonomous deliveries, and that its service will be rolling out to the campuses of UCLA and Bridgewater State University (Massachusetts).

Starship makes self-driving, cooler-sized, six-wheeled delivery robots that carry food, groceries and more. Starship started rolling out its robot delivery service to U.S. college campuses starting with George Mason university back in January of 2019. Since then, the company has added a steady stream of colleges to its ranks across the country over the ensuing years, and has started making grocery deliveries in Modesto, CA.

The COVID-19 pandemic has helped generate interest in delivery robots because of their contactless nature. You don’t have as much human-to-human interaction when the delivery agent is a robot. Robots can also operate all day (even taking the crummy shifts without complaining), and potentially bring down the cost of delivery, making it more affordable for more people.

The delivery robot space is heating up and there are a number of players getting into or scaling up their operations around the world. In the U.S., Kiwibot is operating in San Jose and, coincidentally, it announced earlier this month that it would be expanding to Los Angeles (where Postmates’ Serve robot already works). Yandex is operating food delivery bots in Moscow. Woowa Brothers is making deliveries in Seoul, South Korea. And a newcomer called Ottonomy is just starting to bring its robots to market here in the U.S.

The delivery robots aren’t coming, they are already here.

Ottonomy’s Delivery Robot Drops Food at Your Door and Indoors

There are a few common threads among most delivery robot startups like Starship, Kiwibot and Postmates: They are all using cooler-sized rover ‘bots. Each of their robots has just one cargo compartment. And they are all focused on outdoor delivery. This is where Ottonomy aims to separate itself from the rest of the pack.

Yes, Ottonomy makes rover robots like those other players. Ottonomy’s four-wheeled robot is twice the size of Starship’s robot, has autonomous driving capabilities, and can carry 40 to 45 kg (88 to 100 lbs.). But Ottonomy’s approach to delivery is a little different.

First, Ottonomy’s robot has two compartments, allowing it to make two separate deliveries during a single trip. This means the robot can generate more revenue per trip because it doesn’t have to return to a restaurant or market after every single drop-off.

More important, however, is where Ottonomy will make those deliveries. In addition to making last-mile deliveries, Ottonomy robots will make deliveries indoors. Think large transit hubs like airports or shopping malls. So, for example, a consumer waiting at an airport could order a meal from a participating airport restaurant and have it brought directly to them, wherever they are inside.

Ottonomy Co-Founder and CEO, Rutikar Vijay told me by phone this week that his robots can accomplish this indoor delivery because they do not rely as heavily on GPS to get around. The robots just need to map out the space once, and can then start making deliveries (Ottonomy robots cannot, however ride escalators or elevators).

In addition to opening up a new delivery market, making indoor deliveries could also be an easier path to market for Ottonomy. Unlike Kiwibot, which uses humans to plot delivery routes on public sidewalks, Ottonomy, as its name indicates, is all-in on autonomous driving (though there is still someone monitoring the robot). States and cities are all developing their own rules around autonomous delivery robots with varying levels of restrictions (which streets, operation house, whether a human needs to accompany the robot, etc.). Ottonomy isn’t avoiding outdoor deliveries in the U.S., but by going indoors and off city sidewalks, it can sidestep dealing with the patchwork of regulation and start generating revenue right away.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has kept most people from going to airports or congregating in large indoor areas, at some point we will again, and chances are good that robots will join us. In addition to Ottonomy, Cheetah Mobile in China has its FANBOT, which is basically a mobile vending machine that roams around hotel lobbies and cinemas.

That pandemic has also spurred more interest in robot delivery because of their contactless nature. Not only do they reduce a vector of human-to-human transmission, robots provide an additional method of delivery, which is more important than ever to restaurants.

Ottonomy has already been making deliveries in India and did a pilot last fall in an undisclosed transit hub. Vijay didn’t disclose pricing, but said that the company is exploring both a straight up robotics-as-a-service business model as well as one that includes revenue sharing.

Miso Robotics Equity Crowdfunds $17M, Extends Campaign to Raise $30M

Miso Robotics, the company behind Flippy the cooking robot, announced today that it raised $17 million during its equity crowdfunding campaign from April through November of last year.

In its press announcement, Miso said that its campaign was the highest-grossing technology deal ever on the SeedInvest equity crowdfunding platform. The $17 million was only a little more than half of the $30 million the company had intended to raise, but Miso will be extending this equity crowdfunded Series C round into this year to try and hit that $30 million milestone. Miso has previously raised $15 million in financing and $3.3 million in venture debt.

Miso’s crowdfunding came during a tumultuous time for the restaurant industry, and running an equity campaign during a global pandemic was both bad and fortuitous for the food robotics company. On the one hand, COVID-19 decimated the restaurant industry, shuttering thousands of restaurants and limiting Miso’s potential customer base. Stadiums, where Flippy was already making in-roads as an automated fry cook, were also shut down.

But this crisis also meant opportunity for Miso. While many restaurants were closed, deep pocketed QSRs were able to weather the tumult and were in more of a position to afford Flippy. In a high-profile example, after an initial pilot in July of last year, White Castle quickly expanded its use of Flippy to 11 of its locations.

Buck Jordan, Co-Founder, President & Chairman of Miso Robotics, told me by phone this week that the pandemic caused a “massive” increase of QSRs interest in Miso’s technology. According to Jordan, that interest is being driven by QSR staffing issues, the ability to create social distancing in the kitchen and the ability to transition workers into roles that more involve cleaning and fulfilling delivery and takeout orders.

With restaurants emphasizing delivery and takeout options, there will most likely be sustained interest in technology that can keep workers engaged with off-premises order fulfillment and customer service.

In addition to the funding news, Miso also announced the appointment of Mike Bell as CEO and Jake Brewer as Chief Strategy Officer. Bell was previously COO at Ordermark and President and COO at Bridg. Brewer was formerly VP of Restaurant Excellence at CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.

Cafe X Re-Opens SFO Robot Barista

Those of you still going to airports can once again grab a robot-made coffee at the San Francisco International Airport. Cafe X re-opened its automated barista kiosk in Terminal 3 at SFO earlier this week.

Cafe X had shuttered both of its airport locations (the other one was at the San Jose Airport) last year as the global COVID-19 pandemic decimated air travel. We reached Cafe X Founder and CEO, Henry Hu via Twitter today. He told us that the SFO location was actually closed by the airport because Terminal 3 was seeing so little use. Hu said SFO gave Cafe X the greenlight to re-open recently, as traffic there has ticked back up.

When we last spoke with Hu in August, he said that despite the SFO and San Jose airport closures, Cafe X was still in talks to place its robo-barista at a number of other airports. Airport installations had been a key go-to market strategy for automated vending services and kiosks like Cafe X and Briggo (which is now Costa Coffee). Briggo had even signed a partnership with SSP America to place its robotic baristas in 25 airports throughout 2020 and 2021.

But as noted, the pandemic closed off airports as high-volume locations. Automated food services had to look elsewhere for places where a lot of people want food and beverages quickly.

However, with multiple vaccines beginning to be distributed this year, we could actually see an increase in airport deals for automated vending companies. There will be a lot of pent up desire to travel as the population gets vaccinated, and those returning to the friendly skies will want/need a fresh hot cup of coffee. Cafe X’s robot barista can not only make a mean latte, it also does so in a more contactless way than traditional coffee shops. Perhaps this combination will help Cafe X take off.

Report: Uber Looking to Spin Off Postmates X Delivery Robot Biz

As part of its acquisition of Postmates last year, Uber got into the delivery robot business. Now, according to a report in TechCrunch, Uber is planning to get out of the robo-biz by spinning off Postmates X (the robotics division of the company) into a separate company.

From TechCrunch:

Postmates X, the robotics division of the on-demand delivery startup that Uber acquired last year for $2.65 billion, is seeking investors in its bid to become a separate company, according to several people familiar with the plans.

The new spinout is being called Serve Robotics, named after the companies’ autonomous, cooler-sized Serve robot, which was making deliveries in Los Angeles throughout much of 2020. More recently, Postmates Serve was enlisted by the Pink Dot market to make deliveries in West Hollywood.

TechCrunch reports that Serve Robotics would retain the IP and assets, and Uber would keep a 25 percent stake in the company.

Given how the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing restaurants and grocers to adopt more contactless delivery methods, it may seem like an odd time for Uber to get out of the delivery robot business.

As we’ve been chronicling, autonomous delivery robots are popping up all over the globe. Starship has been doing deliveries on college campuses for more than a year, and expanded to grocery delivery in Modesto, CA. Kiwibot partnered with the City of San Jose for robot restaurant deliveries there. Then there’s Yandex in Russia, Delivers AI in Turkey, and Woowa Brothers in Seoul, South Korea.

But as Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently explained on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast, his company is in the networking business. Khosrowshahi doesn’t think Uber needs to create the technology uses, it just needs access to the best technology that allows it to facilitate deliveries and ridesharing. That’s one reason Uber offloaded its autonomous driving unit at the end of last year.

While the use of robotics is definitely on the rise around the world, there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome before they become mainstream. Regulations and production scale are two biggies. Right now there are a patchwork of rules around autonomous delivery that vary from city to city and state to state. Even as those get ironed out, scaling robots to a number where we see them across the country is still a huge undertaking.

Uber pushing those issues off on to a separate company means Uber can focus more on its own delivery and ridesharing businesses. Uber can then just license the robot technology to facilitate its food delivery.

RoboEatz Shows Off Ark 03 Autonomous Robotic Meal Making Kiosk

It’s pretty remarkable to think of how much food robots have evolved over the three years I’ve been covering them. At the start of that time period, we had Flippy the robotic arm that could grill up burgers, and even that required human help. Fast forward to 2021, and RoboEatz is showing off its fully autonomous robotic meal-preparation system that can put together 1,000 meals on its own before a human is needed to refill its ingredients.

RoboEatz Ark 03 is a 200 sq. ft. standalone kiosk featuring an articulating arm, 110 fresh ingredients (30 of which are liquids like soups and salad dressings), an induction cooker and a number of cubbies that hold orders for pickup. After an order is placed (via mobile app or tablet), the robot arm grabs ingredients, places them in the rotating induction cooker, and puts the finished meal container in a cubby. You can see it in action in this video:

RoboEatz creates both cold and hot food, can produce a meal every 30 seconds, cleans and sanitizes itself, and only needs a human for refilling any ingredients that run out. Food can also be customized to meet certain taste and dietary preferences.

You won’t be seeing RoboEatz-branded robo restaurants, as the company plans to license out its technology to third-party restaurants. As I’ve said before, this type of co-branding makes a lot of sense for food robot companies. Hungry consumers won’t know what a “RoboEatz” restaurant would serve, but they would know what to expect from a robot kiosk with “Olive Garden” branding (or whatever, I’m just naming a random.

There is more interest in food robots now, thanks to the global pandemic. A fully robotic kitchen/restaurant means a truly contactless meal creation and pickup experience.

But food robots have the potential to help with the operational costs of running a foodservice operation. There’s the aforementioned savings from not employing a human (a bigger, ethical and societal issues to be sure), but robots can also dispense ingredients with precision and consistency, reducing ingredient waste. Robots can also keep ingredients out of the open keeping them away from outside germs and preventing cross-contamination. Plus, they can run 24 hours a day without a break, eliminating any downtime.

All of the above is why we’re seeing so many fully autonomous robot restaurants coming to market right now. Karakuri, YPC and Highpper all have various versions of fully autonomous robot restaurant kiosks in the works.

All of those companies are also eyeing the same high-traffic locales when placing their robo-restaurants: hospitals, transportation hubs, schools, etc. RoboEatz says it will be opening its first location “soon” in Latvia (where the company is headquartered), with another location at an undisclosed airport opening as well as a prototype store in the U.S. later this year.

Delivers AI Robots Making Deliveries in Turkey

You know those RVs that have a map of the U.S. on their spare tire cover? The maps illustrating where those driving nomads have been? I should get a map like that, only of the countries of the world and fill it in wherever delivery robots pop up, given how quickly those li’l rover bots are proliferating around the globe.

In addition to the U.S., England, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia (and more that I’m unaware of at this time), we can add Turkey to the delivery robot list, thanks to Delivers AI.

Delivers AI - Autonomous Delivery Robot / Europe

Like Starship, Woowa Brothers and Yandex, Delivers AI also creates cooler-sized robots that autonomously wheel around sidewalks and streets to make food and grocery deliveries. Delivers AI robots travel 6 – 7 km/hour and can carry 15 kg (33 lbs.). They are equipped with camera, LiDAR and radar to detect and avoid obstacles, people and traffic. While the robots are autonomous, a human still monitors and supervises the robot while it travels.

Right now, Delivers AI robots are making commercial deliveries in Instanbul, Turkey. According to an email from Delivers AI Founder and CEO, Ali Kutay YARALI, his company will have 10 robots in Q1 of 2021, growing its fleet to 100 robots in a year and 1,000 robots in two years. The company has raised $350,000 from undisclosed investors.

Yarali said the company is focused on the European market and will be working with stakeholders there to develop a legal and technical framework for autonomous robotic deployment there.

One factor that could accelerate adoption of delivery robots in Europe is the ongoing pandemic and continued desire for more contactless experiences when it comes to how we get our food. Robots can provide more human-free interactions when for food ordering and delivery. Additionally, robots can operate for long stretches of time without needing a break.

One thing I will be needing is a bigger map.

CES 2021: Samsung’s Bot Handy Helps with Dishes (and Pours You Wine)

Samsung stormed out of the CES 2021 gate today, announcing a trio of home robots aimed at helping humans around the house. Samsung announced a vacuuming robot, a care assistant robot, and a robot that we are most concerned with here — a robot that will help with dirty dishes and pour you a glass of wine.

According to the press announcement:

Samsung Bot Handy will rely on advanced AI to recognize and pick up objects of varying sizes, shapes and weights, becoming an extension of you and helping you with work around the house. Samsung Bot Handy will be able to tell the difference between the material composition of various objects, utilizing the appropriate amount of force to grab and move around household items and objects, working as your trusted partner to help with house chores like cleaning up messy rooms or sorting out the dishes after a meal.

The press release didn’t provide many more details, but CNET reports that the Handy is able to become taller or shorter, and that its gripper hands can put dishes in a dishwasher, pour a glass of wine or put flowers in a vase.

At CES last year, LG and Samsung showed off kitchen robots, which featured installed, articulating arms helping make meals. The Handy seems a bit more… practical and realistic. Rather than needing a kitchen renovation to get some robotic help, the robot scurries around on its own. Plus, the Handy seems like it could even be more useful. Cooking in the kitchen can be fun, cleaning up dirty dishes really isn’t. So yes, let’s hand that task off to a robot (they can top off my glass when they’re done).

Smile Robotics Makes an Autonomous Table Bussing Robot

Last year was a big one for restaurant server robots, those self-driving trays on wheels that shuttle food from the kitchen to your table and take your empty dishes back. Yes, the pandemic closed many restaurants in the U.S., but companies like Bear Robotics, Pudu Robotics, and Keenon Robotics all made news with their particular autonomous service bots.

All of those autonomous robots, however still require a human to manually transfer food to the table or pick up the dirty dishes and place them back on the robot. And as we live in a COVID world that values fewer human-to-human interactions, this is where Smile Robotics‘ robot could come in handy. The Japanese company has developed the ACUR-C, which can autonomously serve food and drinks or collect trays of dirty or empty dishes and carry them off.

You can check it out for yourself in this video Smile Robotics posted last year:

Autonomous Clear Up Robot (ACUR-C) [Smile Robotics]

That video only shows off the bussing aspect of the robot, and even that capability won’t set any speed records. A human would be able to clear those tables in a fraction of the time it takes the robot. But it’s a start, and as with all things robot, the technology is only going to improve.

The ACUR-C is fully self-driving robot. In other words, it doesn’t need ceiling or floor markers to “see” and navigate around a restaurant. It can carry multiple trays, and the “hands” of the robotic arm can be swapped out to either collect or serve items. We reached out to Smile Robotics to find out more and will update this post when we hear back.

It’s super easy to see the ACUR-C fitting into a restaurant like the Country Garden robot restaurant complex in Guangdong, China. That restaurant has robot servers and food descending from ceilings, but nothing (as far as we know) that will automatically bus the tables.

Smile Robotics, however, could be thinking a little closer to home. Japan has an aging population and is facing a resulting labor shortage. A robot table server + busser combo will undoubtedly find a lot of use there.

Will 2021 Be a Big Year for Food Robots? (Yes!)

Two years ago, I predicted that 2019 would be a breakout year for food robots. Let’s just say that I was a little premature with that particular prognostication. In my defense, I did said that they wouldn’t go mainstream, but still, a miss is a miss.

The reason I am dredging up my past mis-forecast, is because I’m circling back and re-purposing that robo-prediction for 2021. And like a lousy gambler, I swear, this time it’s different.

I swear that because, well, actually the robot landscape going into 2021 is much different than it was two years ago. Before going into why, it makes sense to take a step back and define our terms here. I’m using “robots” as kind of a catch all phrase. What I’m really talking about is the broad adoption of technology to automate current manual processes when it comes to the meal journey. Processes like food assembly, preparation and delivery.

I still don’t think food robots will be mainstream in 2021, there are bigger issues around production, scaling and regulation that will prevent that, but I do think a wave of regional and national retail and restaurant brands installing new automated food services.

Because COVID

Like just about everything else on the planet, the ongoing COVID pandemic is spurring the acceleration of automation across the food landscape. I sound like a broken record at this point, but robots don’t get sick and they can reduce the amount of human-to-human interaction necessary when getting food. Robots and automation can also help create social distancing for the humans are still working in restaurants and and kitchens.

Food Prep Robots

As noted above, White Castle announced a pilot with Flippy as a robotic fry cook this past summer. That pilot quickly expanded to a larger rollout of Flippy working 11 locations in the Chicago area. In addition to creating a more contactless experience, White Castle, which is open 24 hours, noted that Flippy helped with labor issues. Trying to schedule people for late night shifts is hard, so having a robot running the fry stations all day (and night) is helpful.

As restaurants work to recover from this devastating year, they will need to keep a close eye on labor and operating costs. Robots, like the pizza assemblers of Picnic and Middleby, can help with that by consistently applying the same amount of ingredients every time, thereby reducing waste. Plus, those machines can crank out tons of pizza per hour making them efficiently productive.

White Castle wasn’t the only major restaurant chain getting in on robotics. KFC in Korea announced a partnership with Hyundai Robotics this fall to develop of fried chicken making robot. And Costa Coffe, a division of Coca-Cola, acquired robot barista company, Briggo, to create Costa Coffee-branded automated coffee houses.

Then, of course, there is Spyce Kitchen launched version 2.0 of its robot-driven restaurant this year. The new concept is centered around its automated Infinite Kitchen, which allows for greater customization and personalization with orders. Spyce Kitchen doesn’t have any indoor seating, and is only doing delivery and pickup.

Food retailers are also getting in on the robot action. With the pandemic shutting down big, buffet-style salad and hot bars, some have turned to robotic vending machines like Chowbotics’ Sally. Coborn’s Market, for example, recently installed a Sally to serve up salads to its customers. And you might be seeing Chowbotics’s robots in more aisles of the grocery store. Earlier this year, Chowbotics CEO, Rick Wilmer outlined a vision where his robots are automating the free sample sections of supermarkets.

We are also reaching a point where smart vending machines are no longer stationary. Yo-Kai Express said it will be launching an autonomous mobile version of its hot ramen vending machine around the end of Q1 on two college campuses next year. This self-driving vending machine will come to you and make you a bowl of hot ramen on the spot.

Server Bots

Along with making food in restaurant kitchens, expect to see more robots rolling food out to tables (you know, when it’s safe to eat inside restaurants again). These autonomous carts on wheels can navigate to tables and around people to shuttle food and empty dishes to and from the back of house.

Both Pudu Robotics and Bear Robotics launched new versions of their server robots this year. LG is working with Woowa Brothers in Korea to develop their own robot waiter. And as of May this year, Keenon Robotics said it had 6,000 of its server robots already working in hotel and restaurant industry locations around the world.

Driving this push into robot servers is, again, COVID. Robots can work all day without getting sick, reduce human-to-human interaction, and could help with staffing issues for restaurants forced to cap indoor dining.

If you want a glimpse at the future restaurant robots, check out the video from this restaurant in Guangdong, China. There, robots take your orders, cook your meals and then drop your food on a tethered tray from the ceiling.

Delivery

But robots won’t just be dropping off food to your table, they will be driving right up to your door. Delivery bots proliferated around the country and the world throughout this past year.

There were also regulatory hurdles crossed this year, that will help open up more roads to autonomous vehicle delivery. Nuro was on a tear this year getting its self-driving R2 pod vehicle cleared by the U.S. Federal government to run on public roads, the OK from California’s government to run on public roads, and then just last week, approval from the State of California to launch a commercial autonomous vehicle service there.

To be sure, there are still plenty of city and state regulations that need to be worked out before fleets of robots will be scurrying around your town, but these were all positive steps in the right direction.

Tying it all together

Everything I mentioned above is great, and shows you how 2020 was a foundational year for robots that can be built upon in 2021.

But for me, the most exciting development for food robotics that happened this year and will pave the way for further innovation next year is the integration of robotics into other automated infrastructure.

In Seoul, Woowa Brothers partnered with networking platform developer HDC I-Controls and Hyundai Elevator to allow Woowa’s delivery robots to not just drive up to the front door of an apartment building, but also gain entrance to a secure building and autonomously ride the elevator. This will help a delivery robot get to a specific apartment inside a building.

In another example, Piestro will outfit some of its robotic pizza vending machines so that a Kiwibot delivery robot can autonomously pick up a pie and deliver it to a customer at home or at work or wherever.

In other words, delivery robots won’t just operate in silos, they will be connected to and woven into the larger fabric of our lives.

It’s not hard to see a human placing an order for a meal at their favorite restaurant via a mobile app. That order is cooked by a robotic chef, which hands it off to a prepping robot that plates and packages the meal before handing it to a server robot that runs it out to the sidewalk and deposits the food in a delivery robot who then drives it to the customer.

But we’re not done! Ideally that meal is packaged in a reusable container which a different robot picks up and takes to a cleaning facility like Dishcraft’s, where a robotic dishwasher cleans and sterilizes the containers to be used again.

OK. That vision is still a ways away and definitely won’t happen in 2021. But maybe it’ll make my prediction list for 2023? Stay tuned.

Oh! And mark your calendars for April 20, 2021 when we’ll be hosting our second Articulate Food Robotics Summit (virtally, of course). Reserve your spot today!

Video: Food Descends from the Ceiling in This Chinese Robot Restaurant

In June of this year, we wrote about a robot-run restaurant opening up in the Guangdong province of China. The Qianxi Robot Catering Group, a subsidiary of Country Garden, opened a restaurant complex featuring different robots that cooked and carried food.

One thing we didn’t know at the time was that meals would be dropped from the ceiling. At least, that appears to be what happens inside the restaurant based on a video we came across.

I should insert a few caveats here about this story. There is still a lot we don’t know yet about the video below, but it looks legit and is pretty remarkable, so we wanted to share it.

Yesterday Anthony James, CEO of Innovation and Growth at Trinity Consulting, posted a video on Linkedin showing how food travels around the inside of a robot restaurant in Guangdong, China. We don’t know who shot the video, and the restaurant in the video goes unnamed, but from the bright pink decor and pink robots, it appears to be the same restaurant we wrote about back in June.

The main reason we wanted to post this is because of the rail system that delivers orders. According to a follow up comment from James, guests place an order with one of the bright pink server robots that wheel about on the floor. The cooking robot prepares the meal, which then gets plated and sent out on a modified tray via an overhead rail system. When the meal reaches the ordering table, a tethered tray drops from the ceiling to just above the table where the customer takes the plate of food off the tray. The tray and tether then retract back up to the ceiling to go make another delivery.

You can watch the whole process here:

Interest around food robots and automation has accelerated this past year, thanks to the pandemic. Robots don’t get sick, and they also reduce the amount of human-to-human interaction involved in getting a meal from the kitchen to the customer. But robots are also fast workhorses that can operate around the clock. Country Garden’s robot restaurant in Guangdong can serve up a meal in as little as 20 seconds.

The bigger question for establishments such as this, however, is how much of an investment to make in dining room technologies. Here in the U.S., foot traffic into major QSR dining rooms is half of what it was at the beginning of the year. Would that investment be better spent automating drive-thrus and other forms of food to go? Perhaps the Chinese market will rebound differently.

If you’re a Spoon reader in Guangdong, China, do us a solid and visit the restaurant. Then leave us a comment and tell us what it’s like.

Nuro Gets Regulatory Approval for Self-Driving Delivery in California

Autonomous food delivery revved a few miles forward today. Nuro, a company that makes self-driving vehicles for delivery, announced it is receiving the first-ever Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Permit from the California DMV. According to an email sent to The Spoon, this gives Nuro permission to launch a commercial autonomous vehicle service in California (which would be the first in the state). 

In layman’s terms, that means Nuro can now delivery groceries, household items, and other goods to customers’ doorsteps via its own self-driving vehicles. 

These pod-like vessels are roughly half the size of a regular car and completely autonomous. There isn’t even room for a human drive to sit in the vehicle, which travels at a max of 25 miles per hour. 

The news follows Nuro’s $500 million fundraise from earlier this month, as well as the testing permit Nuro received in April to operate on public roads in California.

Regulatory approval, or lack thereof, is one of the major factors inhibiting widespread adoption of self-driving vehicles for food and grocery delivery. State and local governments have to ensure public safety on roads, sidewalks, bridges, and other throughways before they can allow fleets of unmanned vehicles to be unleashed in cities and towns. That explains why some companies, including Starship and Kiwi, started on college campuses.

But Starship and Kiwi rover bots that are considerably smaller than Nuro’s R2 vehicle, which wouldn’t in all likelihood easily drive through the camps quad. The Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Permit means Nuro won’t have to resort to such locations in order to make its delivery services available to U.S. residents. 

Nuro said in today’s email that it will start delivery service with existing partners in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties in the new year. Service will begin with the company’s autonomous Prius vehicles and eventually transition to the company’s “full fleet” of both Priuses and R2s. 

Also this week, Nuro acquired autonomous trucking company Ike. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.