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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

robot restaurant

Spyce Gets a Patent for its Robot Restaurant

Spyce received a patent this week for its robot-run restaurant. Patent number US 10,154,762 B was awarded to Spyce on December 18 for “Automated Meal Production System and Apparatus.”

The patent is filled with the requisite mechanical drawings and legalese, but there were a couple of things that stood out. From the patent filing:

The invention provides a fast food restaurant/kitchen concept or kiosk with drastically reduced overhead costs. This is possible by automating the entire meal production system, therefore eliminating the need for onsite employees and reducing the space required for the restaurant.

As my colleague, Mike Wolf, found out earlier this year, the Spyce restaurant in Boston still relied on humans to help explain the newfangled automated concept to customers as well as finish up the food once it was cooked by the robot. Since this is the first such Spyce restaurant, it’s understandable that they would have a few people on hand as they worked out any kinks. But if the patent is any indication, future locations won’t have such people power:

The inventive apparatus can be configured to autonomously cook and serve up to 300 meals or more per day with no human involvement. The automated restaurant will preferably be restocked and serviced by employees once every 24 hours.

According to their patent filing, Spyce believes that by reducing/eliminating the human costs associated with running a fast food type restaurant can free up resources to create better food. It’s a solid argument, now we’ll just have to see how it plays out in real life.

There are plenty of robot-powered restaurants coming online. From Creator and Flippy here in the U.S. to the thousands of locations JD.com and Haidilao plan to in China, and you can expect more throughout next year.

But it looks like Spyce may have ambitions beyond its own restaurant and may expand into other applications:

Alternatively, the inventive apparatus and system can be used in industrial applications for the automated production of ready-to-eat food products or entrees in bulk.

Perhaps Spyce is thinking about going all Wolfgang Puck and creating its own line of pre-packaged Spyce meals that could be sold in grocery aisles. Or maybe it will offer its robot as a white-label food maker for grocery stores or other CPG companies to create their own customized and branded prepared meals.

Spyce, which raised $21 million in funding this year, seems to be setting itself up to scale beyond the restaurant biz.

JD.com Just Opened its First XCafe Robot Restaurant in China

Earlier this year, Chinese company JD.com said that it planned on opening 1,000 robot-staffed restaurants across China by the year 2020. Well, now it has just 999 more to go as this past weekend, JD.com opened up the XCafe robot restaurant in Tianjin.

Pandaily reports that the new robo-restaurant is 400 square meters and seats up to 100 customers at a time. A combination of robots and artificial intelligence takes orders, prepares food, plates orders and serves meals. Humans aren’t completely out of the equation (ed. note: yet), as a handful are around to assist the robot cooks and refill ingredients.

As we’ve noted, robot restaurants are so hot right now. In China alone, Alibaba runs the Robot.he restaurant and Panasonic and Haidilao formed a joined venture and opened up the first of up to 5,000 robot hot pot restaurants. Here in the U.S. we have Spyce in Boston and the Creator burger joint down in San Francisco.

Worth noting just because of its potential to be a future clue from Puzzle Master Will Shortz: San Francisco is also home to robot coffee kiosk, Cafe X. Will we ever see an XCafe restaurant next to a Cafe X? (Sidenote to our sensitive readers, do not Google “XCafe.”)

There are a number of factors driving the growth of robot-run restaurants. First, robotics themselves are getting better, to the point where they can handle oddly-shaped and softer materials. Second, there is a shortage of workers for sectors like fast food here in the U.S. as well as in places like Japan, where an aging population is leading to labor shortages. Robots won’t burn themselves on a hot stove or fryer, and, as Haidilao pointed out, automation can make it much easier to scale your operations (not as much training, it’s consistent, more software driven results, etc.).

It’s also worth noting the aggressiveness with which Chinese companies are jumping into the robot restaurant business. Haidilao and JD.com together have 6,000 robot restaurants in the works. Spyce, Creator and Cafe X are going to have to fire up the robot factory to stay competitive.

Alibaba Opens Robot Restaurant as Automation Expands Around the Globe

Alibaba has opened up a highly automated restaurant in Shanghai, as robots continue to enter eateries around the globe.

The Robot.he restaurant in the Hema supermarket uses a series of apps, QR codes, and robots to provide a futuristic dining experience (hat tip to Axios). The Hema app tells customers where to sit in the restaurant and is used to pay for meals as well as to order more food once seated. Once the food is ready, small pod-like robots scurry out on shiny tracks to deliver it straight to the table.

While there is a ton of technology at play here, Hema still relies on humans for much of the work. From the video (see below), staff on-hand helps with the selection of seafood, and there are human cooks making the meals.

Alibaba’s news site, Alizila, didn’t say exactly when the restaurant opened, or provide much information regarding future plans for Hema, but Alibaba is getting more into robots in other parts of the company, rolling out its autonomous delivery vehicles.

China will certainly be a hotbed for robot restaurant activity. Last month, Alibaba rival JD.com announced it would open up 1,000 completely robot-run restaurants by 2020. And for what it’s worth, Google recently invested $500 million in JD.com, so who knows how Alphabet’s AI endeavors might tie in with JD’s robo-ambitions.

But the Hema opening also shows how robot restaurants are opening around the globe. While they are a novelty right now, they will quickly become the norm. Here in the U.S., Spyce Kitchen’s robot restaurant whips up bowls of food, Creator makes a $6 hamburger and Cafe X just opened up its first sidewalk robot barista-in-a-box. Over in France, EKIM is busy building out its robot pizzaiolo, and in Japan, robots are making street food.

There are a few factors contributing to this rise of the restaurant robot. First, robots can run all day without a break, and in places where labor is tight, robots could be increasingly necessary. Second, robotics and AI are getting more evolved and developing technologies to better handle the different shapes and textures of food. And while this automation will impact the number of jobs available to millions of people, robots can also take over the menial, sometimes dangerous and repetitive jobs, freeing people up for higher-skilled labor.

And hopefully freeing people up to eat at more robot restaurants.

Podcast: Robot (and Big Data) Pizza: A Conversation With Zume Pizza’s Julia Collins

In today’s podcast, I talk with Zume Pizza cofounder Julia Collins.

If you’ve read an article about Zume Pizza, chances are it focused on the how the company is using robotics to make pizza more efficiently.

But here’s the thing: while robot-assisted pizza production IS interesting, it is NOT what’s the most intriguing part about Zume Pizza’s business. No, what makes Zume Pizza revolutionary is it’s the application of data analysis combined with what the company calls an “elastic” pizza delivery network that pushes final cook and delivery to where the most demand.

In a sense, the company is applying cloud computing concepts to pizza creation, bringing the ability to scale fast to meet demand with highly efficient resources.

This makes sense for a whole bunch of reasons. Traditional retail fast food involves hundreds of thousands – even sometimes millions of dollars – in fixed cost associated with each (to use a telecom term) “point of presence”, but once the store is built you’re stuck in one place. Why not move to meet demand where it’s at, when it’s at?

That is exactly what Zume is doing with a network of mobile pizza trucks that do final-cook in smart ovens and through a fleet of scooters that bring the pizza to the consumer’s home.

Enjoy the podcast.

I Ate At Eatsa. Now I’m Convinced It’s The Future of Fast Casual Dining

Like most everyone, one of the reasons I love going to New York City is the food.

And after all, why not? The variety is endless, and every meal brings a chance to eat somewhere (and something) amazing. In just one three-day trip to the Big Apple this week, I got to eat  dinner at America’s best pasta restaurant, have lunch in the middle of Grand Central Station, and grab breakfast at one of the city’s best cafes with longtime former editor of Food and Wine, Dana Cowin.*

But the meal I got most excited about was a $10 Bento Bowl I had at eatsa. That’s because while I’d written a bunch about the quinoa-centric, tech-heavy restaurant startup, I’d yet to eat there, so I was intrigued to see what it was like to eat with a completely automated the front-of-house experience.

I ate @eatsarestaurant this week. Here’s a quick video recap of the experience.

A post shared by Michael Wolf (@michaelawolf) on

Here’s a quick recap of my experience:

The Walk-In Experience:  When I walked into the Madison Avenue eatsa, it was moderately crowded. At 3:30 in the afternoon it was late for lunch, so I’d expect even bigger crowds during lunch hour.

This location was loud. Of course, everything seems to be bustling in the middle of Manhattan, but this eatsa location was definitely louder than most fast food or fast casual restaurants I’ve been to, in no small part due to the loud music playing over the speakers.

I also noticed an eatsa employee in the lobby. I found this interesting because I wasn’t sure if anyone ever saw an employee when dining at eatsa.

The Order Experience: The order experience is straightforward. Before I could peruse the menu on one of the 8 or kiosks, I was asked to swipe a credit card. I was then given a choice of pre-made bowls or the option to build my own custom bowl.

Ordering food at eatsa

I found the menu simple and easy to understand. Once I chose a Chef’s bowl, I added a beverage and paid. The total price for my bowl was under ten bucks.

Wait and Pick Up: After checkout, my name soon appeared on a big screen above the wall of cubbies.

After ordering, my name appeared on a big screen under ‘Current Orders’

When my food was ready, the screen told me which cubby from which to pick up my meal. The total wait time was less than five minutes. When I picked my meal up, both my bowl and drink were there. However, my dining companion’s drink was missing, so he had to ask the eatsa employee to radio to the back and have them put a drink in the cubby.

How Was The Food?: You should know this: the food at eatsa is really good. I have to admit I wasn’t sure how much I would like a quinoa-centered meal, but the bento bowl I ordered was fresh, crispy and most of all, delicious. My friend Aaron Cohen ordered the hummus and falafel bowl and found it equally tasty.

Closing Thoughts

After eating at eatsa, here are my takeaways:

The whole experience was very low friction: Eating at eatsa is  just really, really easy to do. I walked in, ordered and started eating in about 5 minutes.  I think for lunch customers in busy cities or corporate dense suburbs, eatsa is perfectly optimized for quick pick-up-and-go lunches.

Price-value exceeds most restaurants. The food quality and taste are extremely high for the price. My meal was under ten bucks, lower than average when compared to pretty much any chain restaurant.

It’s not all robots…yet. In a way, I was happy to see a human employee in the lobby of eatsa. It became apparent with my friend’s missing drink why eatsa would need to have someone in the front of the house to answer questions and solve problems.

The mystery is part of the allure. Since we’re early in the robot-restaurant revolution, people are naturally curious about how the restaurant works. When I asked the young woman working up front what went on in the back of house, she said, “some people say it’s robots” with a twinkle in her eye and left it at that.

This is the future of fast food and fast casual. As CEOs from fast casual chains like Buffalo Wild Wings wring their hands about the future, eatsa is busy creating a new template that leverages automation to bring a high-quality, low-friction food experience to the consumer. While I don’t think all restaurants will automate the front-of-house like eatsa – after all, no one can replace a great maître d’ or the ambiance of a cool coffee shop with touch screen kiosk – I have no doubt that what eatsa has created is a glimpse into the future.

*Yes, that’s a humble-brag, as I’m a fan of Dana’s and you should be too (you can check her podcast here). And no, a Dana Cowin is not included with every meal at High Street on Hudson.