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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Flippy

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop Adds Miso’s Flippy Robot to its Automat Concept

In addition to feeding you, the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop wants to create a “zero human interaction” experience. And as Restaurant Business reports today, the company is removing at least one human from its equation by bringing on Miso Robotics’ Flippy to work in its kitchen.

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop (BDS) co-founder Stratis Morfogen told Restaurant Business, “Miso is executing the full kitchen operation, which will be available in the third quarter 2021. Until then we will be using countertop portable versions in Q1 of 2021.”

What Morfogen seems to be referring to there is that eventually his company will install Flippy ROARs, which run on rails above the fry station. For now, his store will use the ground-based versions.

The Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, which is slated to open its first location in December (and, confusingly, in Manhattan), is bringing back the old Automat concept. Customers will order their meals via a kiosk or mobile app. Once ready, BDS stores each order in its own a temperature-controlled locker until the customer arrives to retrieve it.

The timing is certainly right when it come to having fewer humans involved in the preparation of your restaurant food. The COVID-19 pandemic is more widespread than ever and causing another round of restaurant dining room closures. Creating a restaurant where you don’t have to interact with another person helps reduce the vectors of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

Robots like Flippy are also finding accelerated interest from restaurants because they can work around the clock, don’t get sick and can create more social distance for employees inside a kitchen. White Castle recently announced it was adding ten more Flippys to its roster after an initial pilot earlier this year.

For BDS, the addition of Flippy plays into a bigger expansion plans for the company. As Restaurant Business wrote in today’s post, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop also signed a deal with Fransmart to franchise the brand with the possibility of adding 1,000 locations across North America.

Miso Robotics Announces Commercial Availability of Flippy ROAR

Miso Robotics today announced the commercial availability of its cooking bot, Flippy Robot on a Rail (ROAR). The company also announced that it is working with TimePayment so restaurants interested in adding Flippy to their kitchens can do so with no upfront cost.

Introduced earlier this year, ROAR literally flipped Flippy upside down. Earlier versions of Flippy were installed on the floor of a kitchen, but the redesign inverted that set up, suspending Flippy on rails above ground, thus adding more mobility and freeing up room for human co-workers.

Flippy ROAR has actually already been hard at work in a pilot program at a Chicago-area White Castle since July, and with today’s announcement Miso is looking to expand its footprint to even more QSRs and beyond.

“We really want to drive Miso to serving mom and pops,” Buck Jordan, President and Chairman, Miso Robotics told me by phone this week, adding that the company has received a lot of inbound interest from restaurants of all sizes. “Now it’s easier,” he said.

It’s easier because Miso isn’t charging $30,000 upfront for Flippy any longer. Through TimePayment’s financing options, restaurants of any size can get their own Flippy for $2,000 a month, which includes the setup maintenance and software.

Still, $2,000 is still a lot for an industry that operates on thin margins, especially when those margins are more uncertain than ever. With the COVID pandemic closing many dine-in options, restaurants have had to rely on delivery. But third party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats can charge high commission fees that severely eat into any profits a restaurant might see from delivery.

Jordan said the Flippy can help improve the food delivery experience for restaurants. Flippy’s software now integrates with a restaurant’s ordering platform to help process incoming delivery orders from different third party delivery services. So if a restaurant gets orders at various times from DoorDash, Uber Eats and GrubHub, Flippy’s software can look at when orders come in and pickup ETAs to coordinate cook times for each part of each order. The result is that food doesn’t sit for a long period of time under a heat lamp, waiting for the delivery driver, which should result in fresher food for the end customer.

Flippy could also have the ability to alter the labor economics of a restaurant. Yes, $2,000 isn’t cheap, but a robot can work around the clock, won’t get sick, and has the ability to help create more social distance in the kitchen. If a robot can take over the repetitive and sometimes dangerous tasks of operating the grill and fry stations, restaurants might be able to shift human labor to more higher skilled jobs.

In addition to smart cooking workflows, Flippy is now able to learn how to cook more foods faster. Jordan said that it takes roughly a day of data crunching for it to learn to cook a new item. One such new item Flippy added to its roster is the plant-based Impossible Burgers.

Miso’s announcement comes while the company is in the midst of running its equity crowdfunding campaign. The company has so far raised more than $7.8 million from investors so far.

Miso Robotics Expands Equity Crowdfunding Efforts to the UK

Miso Robotics, maker of Flippy the robot cook, announced yesterday that it has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign in the UK on the CrowdCube platform.

Equity crowdfunding is a way of raising money from everyday investors instead of institutional investment sources. CrowdCube funders can invest as little as £10 to own a piece of Miso.

This is the second equity crowdfunding campaign for Miso, which opened one on SeedInvest here in the U.S. back in April with the goal of raising $30 million. That $30 million seems to be a global fundraising goal (yesterday’s press release states Miso is looking to raise £24 million worldwide, which is roughly $30 million USD). We’ve reached out to Miso to clarify.

According to the CrowdCube campaign page, it looks like Miso has already surpassed its UK-specific goal of £1,201,904 and has raised £2,544,720 (~$ 3.2 million USD) from 292 investors with 20 days still left to go. Coincidentally, $3.2 million is what Miso has raised in the U.S. via SeedInvest so far.

Miso’s UK crowdfunding campaign comes just one day after the company announced that U.S. fast food chain, White Castle, was using Flippy to operate the fry station in a pilot program at one of its Chicago locations. This was the first non-investor customer for Flippy, which has also gone to work at CaliBurger as well as the Dodger and Diamondback baseball stadiums.

Miso has raised $13.1 million in traditional funding, with its last round being a Series B back in February of 2018. There are actually a number of startups that have turned to equity crowdfunding in recent years including Small Robot Company (also on CrowdCube), as well as Winc, Mellow and GoSun. Equity crowdfunding helps alleviate some of the scaling pressures that come with institutional money, but also removes some of the institutional knowledge and connections that come with VCs.

Miso appears to be catching on so far with UK investors, now we need to see how many paying customers Flippy can rack up across the pond as well.

White Castle Hires Flippy the Robot for Pilot Program

Robots are storming White Castle! The pop culturally iconic restaurant chain just announced a partnership with Miso Robotics today to bring Flippy the robot on board as a fry cook as part of a limited pilot program.

White Castle will be using the new Flippy ROAR, which debuted earlier this year. Unlike previous versions of the robot, the ROAR is suspended overhead on a rail, sliding back and forth. Flippy will be manning several frying stations at White Castle, cooking up a variety of foods including fries, chicken rings, onion rings and mozzarella sticks.

Jamie Richardson, Vice President, Government and Shareholder Relations at White Castle, told me by phone last week that Flippy will be “coming soon” to an undisclosed location in Chicago.

The partnership comes amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has restaurants of all sizes reconfiguring to accommodate less human-to-human interaction. Robots are one way to reduce human contact with food, but Richardson said that White Castle started talking with Miso 15 months ago, long before the pandemic hit in full. “The unexpected events of COVID made us want to accelerate,” Richardson said, “We do think it’s important to keep marching forward with innovation.”

Robots can also be used to take over more dangerous and repetitive tasks in the kitchen, like operating the fryer. A robot won’t get bored, tired or burned making tater tots for hours on end. “A new hire like Flippy frees us up to have team members do other things like delivery,” said Richardson. Delivery and other forms of off-premises eating, of course, have become more important than ever during this pandemic as dine-in experiences have been forced to close.

For Miso, the White Castle deal comes at a time when the company is trying to raise $30 million through equity crowdfunding. As of now, Miso only has two customers using Flippy, CaliBurger and Compass Group/Levy, both of which are investors in Miso. As well, two current Flippy installation sites are stadiums, which have been shut down because of the pandemic.

With 365 owned and operated restaurants, White Castle represents a big growth opportunity for Miso. Financial terms of this deal weren’t disclosed, but the sticker price on a new Flippy ROAR costs $30,000 upfront with a $1,500 monthly subscription.

Despite having been around for nearly 100 years, White Castle remains remarkably spry. It was among the first restaurant chains to add the plant-based Impossible burger to its menu back in 2018. And as noted previously, it has been active with its third-party delivery program.

With this one installation set to start, we’ll have to see if Flippy becomes king of this particular castle.

Miso Robotics Officially Opens Equity Crowdfunding Campaign to Raise $30M

Miso Robotics, the company behind Flippy, the burger grilling, tater tot frying robot, announced today that it is kicking off its equity crowdfunding campaign to raise a $30 million Series C round.

Equity crowdfunding eschews traditional institutional funding such as venture capital and allows everyday people to invest directly in a company. In the case of Miso, a minimum investment of $1,493 per investor is required in order to participate. (And we should interject that any investment is a risk and this post is not an endorsement of Miso.)

Miso announced the equity crowdfunding campaign back in November, but it still required SEC approval before it could officially begin. According to the press announcement emailed to us, Miso says it has already secured $2.6 million in reservations with a pre-money valuation of $80 million.

Earlier this year, Miso introduced its newest generation of Flippy, the ROAR, which has the robot suspended on rails above a cooking space to make more room for any human co-workers.

This jump into equity crowdfunding comes at an interesting time, to say the least. The world is in the throes of a global pandemic that is costing millions of jobs, has sent the stock market reeling and is creating even new levels of uncertainty. How many everyday people impacted by COVID-19 are going to have the money to plunk down at minimum of $1,500 to own a small part of a robot company?

Not to mention the fact that a big driver of food automation in restaurants was a labor crunch. With an estimated 3 percent of US restaurants permanently closed, there will be a lot of human workers suddenly available once this pandemic passes.

On the other hand, the coronavirus outbreak and fear of human-to-human transmission of the virus is sparking all kinds of change throughout the food system. In a post-corona world, robots that prepare food could be seen as a way to make restaurants more hygienic. This, in turn, could spark a boom in food robotics.

Equity crowdfunding has become a bit of a trend in the food tech world. Other companies like Winc, Small Robot Company, GOffee and GoSun have all turned to the everyday investor for their latest rounds of funding. On one level, it provides them with the flexibility to grow as they like without added pressure from scale-seeking VCs, but it also denies companies the networks and knowledge VCs can provide.

Miso has made its choice, and now we’ll see if everyday investors flip for Flippy the robot.

Flippy Flips Upside Down for QSRs, Will It Impact Miso’s Crowdfunding?

Miso Robotics is taking its cooking robot, Flippy, and uhh, flipping it upside down in a bid to bring in more QSR business. Today the company revealed a prototype of its next version of cooking technology dubbed Miso Robot on a Rail (ROAR).

Rather than being fixed to the ground, the new ROAR is installed on a rail above the cooking surface. It still uses a robotic arm to flip burgers and remove fry baskets, but it now glides back and forth overhead.

According to the press announcement, the new ROAR was developed using market feedback from QSRs that wanted more of a zero footprint solution that doesn’t get in the way of busy human cooks. The current iteration of Flippy is stationary, and surrounding the arm itself, there is a safety zone taped around it to keep human limbs way from automated movements. So it can take up quite a bit of space.

The Flippy brain has also been augmented with new cooking capabilities. In addition to grilling burgers, Miso’s robot can fry up chicken wings, onion rings, popcorn shrimp, sweet potato waffle fries, corn dogs and more.

The ROAR won’t be available commercially until the end of this year. In the meantime, Miso also announced that it is introducing an intermediate model that uses a floor-mounted rail system. Nation’s Restaurant News reports that the new ROAR will cost roughly $30,000. This is about half what the first Flippy’s cost, which was ultimately too high a price for a lot of QSRs.

The news of ROAR also comes as Miso Robotics is equity crowdfunding its next fundraise. While Miso has raised $13 million from traditional VCs in the past, the company is now using the SeedInvest platform to try and raise $30 million. Will the new Flippy sway a few more everyday investors?

The Flippy ROAR also comes in a time of flux for articulating robotic arms. Cafe X closed three of its locations, and Zume shut down its robot-assisted pizza delivery service. Other startups, however, are, like Miso, all-in on robotic limbs. Macco Robotics and Robojuice both believe that a more humanoid-like form factor will connect better with customers.

While Flippy is on display at Caliburger in Pasadena, the new ROAR seems more geared towards production and throughput. With a lower price, we’ll have to see if QSRs put in their order for one.

The Co-Founder and CEO of Miso Robotics, Maker of Flippy, Is No Longer With the Company

Dave Zito, who was Co-Founder and CEO of Miso Robotics, is no longer with the company, The Spoon has learned. This is the second high-profile C-level loss for Miso, following COO Melissa Hampton Burghardt’s departure from the company in September.

Miso Robotics is the startup behind Flippy, the burger flipping, fry cooking robot. Flippy is probably best known for being implemented at CaliBurger in Pasadena, CA (both Miso Robotics and Flippy are companies in the Cali Group holding company). Flippy was also employed by Dodger Stadium to fry chicken tenders and tater tots, and Walmart was experimenting with the robot as well.

At this point, we aren’t sure what spurred Zito’s departure. Zito confirmed with us that he is no longer with Miso and provided the following statement that has been slightly edited for length and clarity:

Yes I can confirm I’ve moved on from Miso. As a co-founder and one of the largest shareholders I am still rooting for the team and the vision we set forth. I’m so proud of all we accomplished together.

I’m a firm believer that breakthroughs in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and Real-time Controls for Automation present the next great wave in disruptive technologies that I believe will radically aid humanity in addressing the most pressing problems of our age. I remain resolutely focused in aiding and supporting this burgeoning ecosystem that is leveraging these technologies to produce teams and products built to make a truly positive and lasting impact.

A spokesperson for Miso also confirmed the news saying the two parties split “amicably” and that Buck Jordan, Founding Partner of Miso will be interim CEO, and helping with the search for a full-time replacement.

The news of Zito’s departure comes a week after CaliBurger announced its 2.0 initiative, which involved adding a second Flippy robot station. Miso Robotics has raised $13.1 million in funding.

CaliBurger Adds a Second Flippy Robot to Make French Fries

Fast food chain CaliBurger announced its new “CaliBurger 2.0” restaurant yesterday, which includes new high-tech features like pay-with-your-face kiosks and the addition of a second Flippy cooking robot.

CaliBurger made headlines last year when it first used Flippy to autonomously grill up burgers at its Pasadena, CA location. The burger chain made even more headlines when it took Flippy offline after just one day on the job because it was too fast for its human co-workers. After some re-tooling Flippy went back on the line a couple months later and has been cooking ever since.

CaliBurger and Miso Robotics, which makes Flippy, are both companies in the CaliGroup portfolio.

While Flippy started its robotic life using computer vision and thermal imaging to make burgers, it has also been taught to work the deep fryer. Since last summer Flippy has been frying up chicken tenders and tater tots at Dodger Stadium, and the robot will bring those skills to make french fries at the new CaliBurger 2.0 locations.

As noted, CaliBurger 2.0 locations will also feature the pay-by-face kiosks. This automated payment system records your face (with your permission), and can keep an order history to immediately surface favorites on the touchscreen interface. We used it last year and it worked just fine.

While robots and interactive kiosks were pretty novel last year, they are quickly becoming more commonplace in fast food restaurants. Just this week, Picnic unveiled its pizza making robot, and Creator‘s burger robot is still hard at work. The global kiosk market is expected to hit $30.8 billion thanks to implementations at QSRs like Dunkin, Shake Shack and Wendy’s.

CaliBurger 2.0 will open its first location this month in Fort Meyers, FL, followed by stores in Seattle, WA, Tysons, VA and Pasadena.

Between Faster Checkout and Robot Tater Tots, the Food Tech Game is Strong at Stadiums

If you want to see some of the coolest innovation in food technology, you need to get in the game. Well, at least get a ticket to the game because stadiums and arenas are fast becoming hotbeds for new ways to sell and get you your food quickly.

Speed is the name of the game and the impetus for most of this disruption happening at large sporting and entertainment venues. The faster attendees can order and get their food, the less time they spend away from the game or concert, and, ideally, the more stuff they buy.

The most recent example is the partnership Postmates announced last week with Yankee Stadium. The partnership, which is similar to one the delivery service has with Dodgers Stadium in LA, and allows attendees to order their food from their seats and pick it up at a designated Postmates Pickup point.

Over at Mile High Stadium in Denver, computer vision-powered checkout scanners have been installed throughout the stadium. Shoppers place their items on a scanner created by Mashgin, which automatically identifies what is being purchased, so individual items don’t need to be rung up one at a time.

But innovation isn’t just happening on the checkout side of the food stand; the way stadium food is being made is undergoing an upheaval as well. Robots in particular will play an increasingly important role in making food at large venues. The Dodgers have used Flippy the robot to fry up chicken tenders and tater tots. And back at Mile High Stadium, the Broncos installed a robo-bartender to pour and serve beer.

The point is that stadiums are perfect venues for a lot of the food technology and automation that we write about. They are large, high-traffic areas that provide a good test case for new, automated workflows and systems. The food being served isn’t highly customized, but rather made in bulk, and meant to be more consistent than artisanal. And really, while it’s fun to eat a hot dog at the ballpark, people are there for the game, so as long as they get their grub in a timely manner, they don’t really care how they get it. Seems like a win for everyone involved.

ArticulATE Q&A: Miso’s CEO on How Flippy the Robot Will Move From Frying to Chopping

Ahh Flippy. It was the first food robot I ever wrote about, way back in…2018. Back then, it could only grill burgers. Now, a year later, it can fry tater tots and chicken tenders, and will reportedly soon get a job in a deli.

They grow up so fast. Soon Flippy will want the keys to not drive the autonomous car.

We’re going to get a full report on what Flippy is — and will be — up to when Dave Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics, sits down for an on-stage chat at our upcoming ArticulATE conference on April 16 in San Francisco. We were so excited to have him be a part of the show that we couldn’t wait and sent him some questions via email, which he was kind enough to answer.

This is but an autonomous amuse bouche — get your ticket today to see Zito and a host of truly amazing speakers at ArticulATE!

THE SPOON: Flippy started off grilling burgers and then moved on to frying up chicken tenders. What particular jobs in the kitchen are Flippy, and robots in general, really good at?

ZITO: We started Miso Robotics with the idea of giving eyes and a brain to a robotic arm so it could work in commercial kitchens with real-time situational awareness and real-time robotic controls. We designed and starting building the system from Day One as a software platform that could automate the cooking of all manner of foods and recipes, with all equipment and restaurant brands, and all kitchen formats.

Our autonomous robotic Kitchen Assistants are focused on helping with the most repetitive, dangerous, and least desirable tasks in the kitchen. Flippy grilling burgers was our proof of concept. Flippy can now fry many different kinds of foods as well. These tasks can be improved and optimized for consistency, ensuring each meal is cooked to the perfect temperature with minimal food waste. Beyond frying, grilling, and other cooking, expect them over time to help with tasks like chopping onions, cutting other vegetables, and even cleaning.

The Kitchen Assistant improves and learns over time based on the data available. Ultimately, this frees up kitchen staff to spend more time with customers. We believe the future of food is on-demand, accessible, personalized, and scalable. We are building the technology platform leveraging automation, machine learning, and robotics advancements to deliver on this future.

What did you learn from Flippy’s time at Dodger Stadium?

Flippy’s deployment at Dodger Stadium emphasized how much one kitchen assistant can impact productivity and efficiency in a high-volume commercial kitchen. Dodger Stadium was the first time we deployed our frying capabilities, and we matched max productivity while producing consistently fried foods to the chef’s expectations. Cooking for extended periods of peak demand during baseball games was a key proof point for the reliability and sustained high throughput of our Kitchen Assistants.

But don’t just take our word for it; here is what our partner Levy had to say about the experience:

“The robotic kitchen assistant helps us more quickly and safely cook perfectly crispy chicken tenders and tater tots,” said Robin Rosenberg, Vice President and Chef de Cuisine for Levy. “It’s amazing to see the kitchen assistant and team members working together, and the consistency of product is incredible.”

“New technologies at large scale venues and events like this need to add value for both guests and team members,” said Jaime Faulkner, CEO of E15, Levy’s analytics subsidiary. “Working with Miso, we were able to create a process that both delivers high quality food more quickly, and gives kitchen team members a chance to hone sought-after skills working with robotics and automation.”

We are looking forward to resuming frying with Levy this baseball season.

What is the biggest misconception about food robots in the kitchens?

The biggest misconception about the use of technology in the kitchen is that it’s about job replacement. There is a growing labor crisis in the restaurant industry. Local workforces are shrinking, and wages are increasing, making commercial cooking uneconomical. Meanwhile, consumers have an increased desire for meals cooked for them, whether via delivery, take-out, dining out, or grocery deli meals, adding pressure on kitchen workers.

Restaurants already see 150% turnover today from a dissatisfied workforce. Pair this with an aging workforce that can’t handle some of the physical demands that come with the job and commercial kitchens are struggling to recruit and retain talent. Intelligent automation not only creates an avenue for meaningful work for the next generation through the creation of new jobs like a Chef Tech (employees trained to manage the robot), but also takes the physical burden off of more mature employees who want to continue to contribute later in life.

The tasks that Miso’s technology can perform are some of the most dangerous tasks in the kitchen, not to mention messy and menial, ultimately improving the employee experience by freeing up time for them to focus on more meaningful work, like warm customer service that a robot simply can’t match.

What should restaurant owners know about food robots before implementing them?

Expect improvements across several aspects of their business — better food, better customer service, better inventory and cost management. While a signature recipe for a restaurant can make it a success, it can be hard to reliably reproduce at scale to every customer, but robots like Flippy can deliver consistency in flavor to help keep customers loyal. Furthermore, the value proposition of implementing robotics in the kitchen spans productivity and cost-savings to one of the most pressing issues in our world today – sustainability. Food waste is a huge contributor to the climate crisis we are in, wasting $160 billion of food a year. This technology has the potential to significantly reduce that number – restaurants can contribute to a positive step in the right direction of food waste and ensure they are maximizing inventory as they begin to grow.

What is your favorite fictional robot?

As a kid I loved Johnny 5 from the film Short Circuit. I loved the idea that technology built for one purpose, in this case the military, once embedded with artificial intelligence shifted to more compassionate pursuits. In that way we are inspired at Miso to take industrial robotic arms, add our intelligence, and in so doing improve them for a broader and more impactful service — helping liberate commercial kitchens from repetitive tasks and mediocre menus, while empowering chefs to make delicious and nutritious meals accessible for all.

Walmart Gives Flippy the Frying Robot a Shot

Flippy, the burger flipping, fry cooking robot, is auditioning for a new gig in Walmart’s deli department, according to Yahoo Finance. The retail giant has been testing Flippy out at its Culinary Institute and Innovation Center, where the robot fries up items like potato wedges, mozzarella sticks and chicken tenders.

This wouldn’t be the first time Miso Robotics‘ Flippy worked a fryer. The robot got a gig this past summer at Dodger Stadium, where it helped cook up more than ten thousand pounds of chicken tenders and tater tots, churning out up to 80 baskets per hour.

As we wrote earlier, there are three core technologies powering Flippy’s fry capabilities:

At the fryer, Flippy uses the Miso See, Miso Serve and Miso Move technologies to fry up the aforementioned tenders and tots. Miso See allows Flippy to identify food, cookware and utensils. Miso Serve helps the robot make real-time cooking decisions. Miso Move controls Flippy’s movements to make sure it is working safely and efficiently. All together, Flippy can put full baskets in the fry oil, monitor the cooking time (and gently shake the baskets while cooking), remove the baskets to drain the oil, and set the food at a designated location for serving.

It should come as no surprise that Walmart is mulling over adding Flippy to its cooking team. Walmart likes to use robots for manual, repetitive tasks and already has them scanning store shelves, cleaning floors and potentially even driving shopping carts.

But that’s three jobs at Walmart that will potentially be performed by robots and not humans. Miso Robotics CEO, David Zito told Yahoo Finance, “Our whole thing is not about job replacement, right….What we want to do is assist the hardworking linemen cooks and chefs in America with tools to give them the ability to faithfully reproduce while taking the burden off some of these more repetitive and mundane tasks.” For its part, Walmart says having robots handle these repetitive tasks frees up humans to prep other food and do more customer service.

While there are mountains of ethical issues coming down the pike as robots take more of our jobs, the fry cook is one where it might actually make sense. In addition to being manual and repetitive, there’s also a certain level of danger associated with standing over a vat of hot oil. Robots,however, don’t get burned, and because they use software to precisely repeat its tasks all day, they won’t burn your tenders.

No Ticket Required, Robot-Powered Creator Restaurant Fully Open in SF

Creator, the restaurant that uses robots to cook up hamburgers, opened to walk-in customers San Francisco this week, as automated restaurants continue to pop up across the country.

Creator features a 14-foot long kiosk-like machine that grinds, cooks, buns and tops burgers. The restaurant actually had a bit of a soft opening back in June, during which it required a ticket to eat there. Since that time, according to Eater, the company has been learning customer preferences and adapting its burger design.

At Creator’s full opening this week tickets aren’t required, but service is first-come first-served, and the restaurant is only open from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Wednesday through Friday.

Creator’s burger-making robot is different from Flippy, the burger-making robot that works at Caliburger further south in Pasadena, CA. Flippy uses an array of cameras and thermal sensors to cook the burgers, but still requires humans to dress them.

But the two are part of a larger trend in using robots in quick service restaurant settings. In addition to Caliburger, Flippy also learned how to fry up chicken tenders for its pilot at Dodger Stadium this summer. Another Flippy will also be deployed at an upcoming Seattle Caliburger location later this year. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Zume Pizza uses robots to pull pizza crusts out of the oven, and over in Boston, Spyce uses robots to make delicious (according to our own Mike Wolf) bowls of food.

As we’ve noted, food robots are great for high-volume restaurants where customers want to get in and get out. Robots work quickly and precisely, they don’t take breaks and they never get injured. The results, however, may need a little fine-tuning. We aren’t in SF, so we haven’t tried it ourselves, but friends of The Spoon have told us that the burger was fine to above average (especially for a burger in downtown SF that only costs $6). Commenters on Yelp echoed those sentiments. People like the robot and the experience, but the burgers are “pretty good,” and “slightly underwhelming.”

Robots are becoming commonplace in restaurants, so their novelty and ability to attract customers in and of themselves will start to diminish. Once that happens, the food will need to be good to keep people coming back. That’s why even though I’m anxious for Flippy to make its Seattle debut, I’m more excited about the Crowd Cow burger coming to our first Shake Shack.