Category: Restaurant Tech
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Here at The Spoon, we’ve been following pretty much every robot restaurant concept for the past decade, and have watched dozens of company ideas and hundreds of millions of dollars come and go in this space. One company that has gone and appears to be coming back again is Creator. For those new to the…
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AI-powered restaurant forecasting startup ClearCOGS has raised $3.8 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by Closed Loop Partners, with participation from Myriad Venture Partners and Hearst’s Level Up Ventures. The funding includes $2.3 million in new capital and the conversion of $1.4 million in pre-seed investments. The company’s software provides predictive analytics to assist…
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Five years ago, the cofounders behind Bridge Appliances stood in line at a busy breakfast cafe. As minutes ticked by, frustration turned into inspiration. They wondered: What if the preparation of eggs could be automated? That simple question led to the creation of OMM, a countertop egg-making robot. Now, half a decade later, the Bridge…
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Just over a year ago, Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle, opened Kernel in New York City—a vegan restaurant concept featuring a large robotic arm in the kitchen to assist in food preparation. Given Ells’s pedigree, Kernel received significant attention from news outlets, with many speculating whether it represented the beginning of widespread robotics adoption…
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Want some AI with your Big Mac? McDonald’s is about to serve it up in a big way. According to a story in the Wall Street Journal today, McDonald’s is undergoing a technology overhaul across its 43,000 restaurants, implementing internet-connected kitchen equipment, AI-driven drive-throughs, and tools for managers. McDonald’s is partnering with Google Cloud to…
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Lee Kindell, founder of MOTO Pizza, Seattle’s fastest-growing restaurant chain, never intended to be a restaurateur. In fact, starting a small local pizza joint was more of a retirement plan for when he eventually retired from running a hostel, where he’d cultivated a community atmosphere by taking guests on foraging trips, introducing them to local…
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Here at The Spoon, we’ve covered hundreds of restaurant operators over the past half-decade, in part because we love restaurants and restaurant tech, but mostly because restaurant operators are some of the most creative and hard-working entrepreneurs in the food business. The truth is they have to be. There’s no business changing faster than the…
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Today Blackbird, a restaurant loyalty startup founded by former Resy and Eater founder Ben Leventhal, announced the launch of Blackbird Pay, a new restaurant payment network. Powered by the company’s new blockchain, Blackbird Flynet, Blackbird Pay is a payment system that Blackbird says will charge less than traditional payment platforms (2% on average compared to…
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Last week at SKS, we had a chance to sit down for an interview with MOTO founder Lee Kindell. Anyone who’s spent time with Lee knows he’s an enthusiastic proponent of technology, both in his restaurants and in our lives. That’s why it no surprise that he’s embracing drone delivery and hopes to see Zipline…
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This week, fast-growing restaurant chain MOTO Pizza announced it will soon add salads to the menu at select locations with the help of Cibotica, a startup specializing in salad and bowl food robots. According to MOTO founder Lee Kindell, the Seattle-based pizza chain will deploy its first Cibotica unit at the chain’s flagship location in…
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Remember Flyfish Club, the Gary Vaynerchuck-affiliated dining club that made news when it announced it was planning to build the world’s first NFT restaurant? While you may not, the restaurant industry sure does. After the group raised an impressive $14 million in just weeks by selling tiered memberships via NFT, it seemed everyone started wondering,…
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This week, a raft of news stories about an encounter with a cashier manning the checkout remotely from a distant location went viral. Dozens of shock-take articles proliferated after a Google employee named Brett Goldstein stumbled upon the remote cashier in a New York City restaurant called Sansan Chicken and proceeded to breathlessly tweet about…
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