The robotic pizza chain of the future envisioned by Darryl Dueltgen and Jason Udrija took a big step forward this week as its first location opened to the public.
The company, which The Spoon first wrote about last year, envisions a modern take on the pizza chain by building a network of robot-powered pizza restaurants tailored for delivery. Its founders started working with Picnic last year to optimize the Seattle startup’s pizza robot to work with their new restaurant concept. Earlier this year, they started delivering pizzas to corporate and education customers and, as of this week, started making pizzas for the public.
When we first talked to PizzaHQ’s founder Jason Udrija, he told us the idea was to build a pizza chain optimized around robotics utilizing a hub and spoke production model. They planned to build a centralized hub to create the raw ingredients and fulfill the orders via distributed fulfillment centers outfitted with Picnic’s pizza-making robots. The company opened its first location in Totowa, New Jersey (in a building once occupied by another pizza restaurant) and has plans to build its centralized production hub in the same city in 2023.
For now, customers can order through their website, an app, and third-party delivery (there is also a pickup area at the front). In the coming weeks, PizzaHQ plans to ramp up the pizza production from about 500 pies per day to 1,500 per day. The company anticipates its next location – with an additional Picnic robot on board – will be able to produce between four and five thousand pizzas per day.
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