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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Bancroft Automated Restaurant Services Plots Pizza Robot for Parking Lots

Parking lots are typically associated with, well parking your car, or maybe doing donuts if you’re feeling rebellious. But parking lots may soon be home to an entirely new phenomenon — pizza robots — if Bancroft Automated Restaurant Services (BARS) has its way.

BARS has developed an all-in-one pizza robot that is larger than a vending machine or kiosk, and meant to be installed in big open areas like parks, sporting events or big parking lots.

The BARS Automated Pizza Kitchen stores 96 pre-topped, par-baked pizzas, each held in a takeout tray in a humidity controlled fridge. When an order is placed either by phone or via on-board touchscreen, the automated system plucks the pizza out of the fridge, runs it under a heater to finish cooking the pizza, and secures a takeout lid on top. From there it is stored in a heated cabinet. When the user enters their pickup code, the machine grabs their pizza from the heater and dispenses it to the user. The whole process takes under three minutes. You can see a video of it in action here.

Speed Bancroft, Founder and CEO of BARS, told me via video chat last week that his pizza kitchen can be integrated with third-party delivery services (so drivers can pick up orders), and can be configured either for walk-up or drive-through customers.

The robot makes 35 twelve-inch pizzas in an hour and requires a human to re-stock and clean the machine once a day. BARS is selling its Automated Pizza Kitchen for $80,000 with a $1,000/month subscription to run it. Though the BARS pizza system is meant to be licensed out to other restaurants, the first implementations will be through BARS’ own Speedy Fresh Pizza brand, with the first installation going in in the Tigerland area of Baton Rouge, Lousiana in about six months.

Pizza is a popular option for automation companies, as a number of players are coming to market in a variety of form factors. There are vending machines like Basil Street (which makes an “Automated Pizza Kitchen” of their own) and Piestro. There are standalone kiosks like PAZZI‘s. And on the larger end is Hyper, which is making fully automated pizza restaurants in a shipping container.

The good news for all these companies is that pizza doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. Pizza is a popular food and there are plenty of places big and small to build these micro-pizzerias. And if you’re going to pick up one from a BARS robot, at least you know there will be plenty of parking.

Radtab Lets You Drink and Dash (and Still Pay)

There is a whole wave of apps that want to streamline the experience of going out. From grabbing a table, to pre-ordering and paying, to backend systems that optimize the in-restaurant experience. Add to that list Radtab, a small startup that uses your phone to open up and automatically close out your bar tab, even if you just walk out.

Closing out your tab can often be the most time-consuming part of going out for drinks– both for the consumer and the bartender. You have to get the bartender’s attention, have them find your name, run the check, figure out the tip, etc.. This is time bar staff could be selling more drinks, and more time you could be spending with your friends.

Enter Radtab. Download the iOS app and set up your credit card information. Then open up the map in the app to choose a Radtab-participating bars in the area and tap to open up a tab at that establishment. When you order a drink, a tab has already been set up with your name in the bar’s point of sale (POS) system. When you’re done, close out the tab via the app or just leave the bar. Once you’re 50 to 100 feet away, Radtab automatically closes out your tab and adds a tip.

The app launched this past October, and only works at 8 bars in Charleston, South Carolina, where the company is located. The app plugs into existing POS software such as Aloha in bars and charges the consumer a flat rate of $1.50 per transaction. It also sets a minimum tip at 18 percent, though people can choose to add more.

Co-Founder Nathan Adamson said that the app has had a little over 500 downloads, and that a core base of users use it 3 – 4 times a week. Radtab will also monetize the user data it’s collecting, charging $100 per month for access to a dashboard that beverage companies could use to run promotions through the app (such as Budweiser rewarding Radtab users who drank their product).

Radtab is family funded right now, and was a part of the sixth cohort at the Harbor Entrepreneurs Center incubator in Charleston. Adamson said that the company is taking its time to build out features such as adding Apple Pay in January, instead of growth right now, and is looking at outside fundraising towards the end of Q1 next year.

Bars are a perfect place for this type of payment efficiency given how manual the closing out process can be as well as the, ummmmm, state of mind of some bargoers at the end of the evening.

Which is why Radtab isn’t the only company looking to make it easier. Over in Austin there’s TabbedOut, and there’s Tally and Tabu. And that doesn’t even count the restaurant apps vying for the same thing.

With all the contenders innovating in this space, pretty soon we’ll all be walking out on our tabs.