Launch HN: Mezli (YC W21) – Robotic restaurants that serve healthy fast food
128 comments
"Robotic restaurant that serves healthy fast food": this is exactly how Eatsa used to pitch itself (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/upshot/restaurant-of-the-...)
Turned out things didn't work out too well for Eatsa, but I think it was more due to errors in execution (hyper fast growth with nation-wide expansion, and lots of time and money spent on developing custom hardware) rather than a lack of product/market fit.
Best of luck to Mezli!
(Disclosure: former Eatsa employee)
Turned out things didn't work out too well for Eatsa, but I think it was more due to errors in execution (hyper fast growth with nation-wide expansion, and lots of time and money spent on developing custom hardware) rather than a lack of product/market fit.
Best of luck to Mezli!
(Disclosure: former Eatsa employee)
Eatsa was strange. It wasn't really automated. It was more like Amazon lockers for fast food. There was a conventional kitchen in back, but order taking and scheduling was automated.
McDonalds announced a big automation push years in 2019. Again, not robotic kitchen automation. Automating order taking and supervision.[1] A previous try at that was called "Hyperactive Bob".[2] That's like Amazon's warehouse automation system with Kiva robots.[3] Or the Chicago Dryer "Cascade" system for folding linens.
These things use computers to tell the people what to do, because unskilled human hands are cheaper than robots. The human part is reduced to simple eye-hand coordination tasks, which robots still can't do very well. "Machines should think. People should work" automation.
[1] https://www.foodserviceequipmentjournal.com/mcdonalds-plans-...
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040908/0156256.shtml
[3] https://youtu.be/CWNuaPE4DTc
[4] https://youtu.be/k-DSd2o-mP8
McDonalds announced a big automation push years in 2019. Again, not robotic kitchen automation. Automating order taking and supervision.[1] A previous try at that was called "Hyperactive Bob".[2] That's like Amazon's warehouse automation system with Kiva robots.[3] Or the Chicago Dryer "Cascade" system for folding linens.
These things use computers to tell the people what to do, because unskilled human hands are cheaper than robots. The human part is reduced to simple eye-hand coordination tasks, which robots still can't do very well. "Machines should think. People should work" automation.
[1] https://www.foodserviceequipmentjournal.com/mcdonalds-plans-...
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040908/0156256.shtml
[3] https://youtu.be/CWNuaPE4DTc
[4] https://youtu.be/k-DSd2o-mP8
> "Machines should think. People should work" automation.
Obligatory dystopian short story on this theme:
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
Obligatory dystopian short story on this theme:
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
Again, not robotic kitchen automation.
Oh, it's in process. I consulted on a early prototype of a new automation project for them and that was 3 years ago. McD just refines and tests the hell out of things for years with their vendors before they launch it.
I worked in a McD kitchen 30 years ago as a teenager. The ironic thing is that the amount of people needed to run a kitchen has stayed essentially the same.
Most run with 2-3 people during an average period. It's just that over those years McD has already automated a huge portion of the grunt work in the kitchen, the rest is just tending to the machines and final assembly + customization, which no robot will get right for another decade or two.
Humans are more versatile, easier to train, quickly replaceable when one goes offline, and keep a much cleaner workstation. The robots do the JIT work on everything else.
Oh, it's in process. I consulted on a early prototype of a new automation project for them and that was 3 years ago. McD just refines and tests the hell out of things for years with their vendors before they launch it.
I worked in a McD kitchen 30 years ago as a teenager. The ironic thing is that the amount of people needed to run a kitchen has stayed essentially the same.
Most run with 2-3 people during an average period. It's just that over those years McD has already automated a huge portion of the grunt work in the kitchen, the rest is just tending to the machines and final assembly + customization, which no robot will get right for another decade or two.
Humans are more versatile, easier to train, quickly replaceable when one goes offline, and keep a much cleaner workstation. The robots do the JIT work on everything else.
> Humans are more versatile, easier to train, quickly replaceable when one goes offline, and keep a much cleaner workstation.
This is a biassed viewpoint.
The problem is that humans do dozens of tasks. When we take one of them and give it to a machine, we view that as a new tool, and we imagine the human hasn't had its work reduced, because 19/20 of the things they were doing last month they still are.
Fry machines are now automatic. So are cash registers. Many locations' burgers are auto-flipped. Those ice cream machines automate 5 different human jobs. Lots of orders are taken on machine now. Etc, etc, etc.
.
> Humans are more versatile, easier to train, quickly replaceable when one goes offline, and keep a much cleaner workstation.
No they don't. If you made your own ice cream, you'd understand.
It's just that when a machine takes over one specific job, we stop thinking of that as having been a human job, and let the human messes go out of our heads.
There was a time when fast food restaurants sliced their own cheese; ground their own beef; cut and cooked their own french fries; mixed their own sodas.
You don't live long enough to understand the progress of piecemeal automation.
This is a biassed viewpoint.
The problem is that humans do dozens of tasks. When we take one of them and give it to a machine, we view that as a new tool, and we imagine the human hasn't had its work reduced, because 19/20 of the things they were doing last month they still are.
Fry machines are now automatic. So are cash registers. Many locations' burgers are auto-flipped. Those ice cream machines automate 5 different human jobs. Lots of orders are taken on machine now. Etc, etc, etc.
.
> Humans are more versatile, easier to train, quickly replaceable when one goes offline, and keep a much cleaner workstation.
No they don't. If you made your own ice cream, you'd understand.
It's just that when a machine takes over one specific job, we stop thinking of that as having been a human job, and let the human messes go out of our heads.
There was a time when fast food restaurants sliced their own cheese; ground their own beef; cut and cooked their own french fries; mixed their own sodas.
You don't live long enough to understand the progress of piecemeal automation.
We've taken a lot of inspiration from Eatsa, actually! We've chatted with probably of half-dozen ex-Eatsa folks. I'll shoot you a note if you're up for a conversation.
I used to grab Eatsa every day for lunch. It was really the only customizable, healthy, affordable, and fast lunch options around. It was packed all the time too. I was super bummed and surprised to learn they shut down. There's definitely a market for this.
Actually I think these guys sound more like Bowlton.
Sounds like they followed the WebVan business model.
Are you aware of the fact that most molded containers, just like the ones you use (the 'cardboard' where you put the food) can be dangerous? As greases, especially hot, destroys common cardboard those containers usually contain PFAS, a chemical which is the reason why those containers are so difficult to soak up. This is a widely used product, for example on clothes, to waterproof things. However using it on material coming in contact with food, especially hot or greasy, may be dangerous because the product leaches into the food. Previously used molecules in this family are named pfos and pfoa, are now already classified as dangerous (for human health) and global pollutants, and not produced anymore in most countries. There is now a major concern about PFAS found in drinking water in a growing number of nations, including the US, some class actions may follow, and it may become one of the most prominent food scandal.
To be on the safe side may imply to really check that the containers do not contain such molecules.
To be on the safe side may imply to really check that the containers do not contain such molecules.
This is why I typically avoid eating fast or prepared food. One has no idea how many times the ingredients or dish have contacted harmful plastics, or which plastics they have contacted, or at what heat level the contact was sustained at, or for how long.
Same here. The ingredients themselves may be of low quality, nearly (or past) their expiration date...
I don't think the OP's project is particularly suspect, and on the contrary it seems to me that a "robotic" approach induces on the typical prospect's mind a more-than-vague impression that the process, in such a restaurant, is well-mastered and under control.
If there is any locally well-known label/certification of quality (ingredients, cartons...), which will be clearly displayed for any prospect to see, it may be a booster.
I don't think the OP's project is particularly suspect, and on the contrary it seems to me that a "robotic" approach induces on the typical prospect's mind a more-than-vague impression that the process, in such a restaurant, is well-mastered and under control.
If there is any locally well-known label/certification of quality (ingredients, cartons...), which will be clearly displayed for any prospect to see, it may be a booster.
An idea will be to give you standardized container (and pay less like for utensils) when you pick up.
"Bowls"? You mean something like an automatic wok machine?[1] Those are common in China.
1964 technology for automated fast food: AMFare: [2]
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Commercial-Wok-machin...
[2] https://youtu.be/1Xop9py8zBY
1964 technology for automated fast food: AMFare: [2]
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Commercial-Wok-machin...
[2] https://youtu.be/1Xop9py8zBY
Yes, we've seen those! We're essentially building a big, souped-up version of #1 with a lot more features.
#2 is an interesting comparison that raises the question of why now is the time to build automated restaurants. The biggest reason in my mind is actually labor cost and people's increasing unwillingness to work fast-food style jobs. When AMFare came out it was easy and cheap to hire teenagers to flip burgers, but that's less and less the case and people still want cheap, convenient food. There are also other factors like the fact that we have a lot more modern electronics to work with and learned from examples like AMFare to make our system easy to clean.
#2 is an interesting comparison that raises the question of why now is the time to build automated restaurants. The biggest reason in my mind is actually labor cost and people's increasing unwillingness to work fast-food style jobs. When AMFare came out it was easy and cheap to hire teenagers to flip burgers, but that's less and less the case and people still want cheap, convenient food. There are also other factors like the fact that we have a lot more modern electronics to work with and learned from examples like AMFare to make our system easy to clean.
> There are also other factors like the fact that we have a lot more modern electronics to work with and learned from examples like AMFare to make our system easy to clean.
How have you made your system easy to clean?
How have you made your system easy to clean?
Some of it is still secret but on a high level we've designed it to keep the number of food contact zones to a minimum and make them all easy to machine-wash.
Everyone proposing robot kitchens should watch the AMFare video.
And maybe read the top comment by someone who worked on that project:
"The food was really good. The hamburgers were great. The patties were transported on an open steel belt as they passed through the gas burner that cooked them top and bottom. They had a great char-broiled flavor. But the Amfare system never got anywhere, because it took a crew many hours each day to clean the machines. A normal fast food chef will clean the grill after each burger is made. You can imagine how bad the hamburger machine got after running continuously for 12 to 16 hours every day."
"The food was really good. The hamburgers were great. The patties were transported on an open steel belt as they passed through the gas burner that cooked them top and bottom. They had a great char-broiled flavor. But the Amfare system never got anywhere, because it took a crew many hours each day to clean the machines. A normal fast food chef will clean the grill after each burger is made. You can imagine how bad the hamburger machine got after running continuously for 12 to 16 hours every day."
"Hey, we have 50 engineers sitting around that just finished our new bowling pin setter machine. What should they work on next?"
Love the first one. Thanks for the link. Price will probably drop to $500 by the time I can afford one.
I cant help but think that this looks exactly like a tiny automated metal foundry.
This sounds a lot like Spyce, a robotic grain bowl restaurant that's been open in Boston for a few years. Not a criticism, there's obviously room for more than one of this kind of place in the world, but were they an inspiration for you? Even your motivation for starting the company is similar to the Spyce founders: https://boston.eater.com/2018/4/27/17290330/downtown-crossin...
It makes perfect sense that their motivations are similar. I can't think of two bigger reasons than lack of time and lack of funds to have quality, healthy food that's cheap or quick.
It's also funny to see the Spyce creators complaining about $10-$12 meals, when the prices on the website range from $10.40-$11.90.
It's also funny to see the Spyce creators complaining about $10-$12 meals, when the prices on the website range from $10.40-$11.90.
Yes we're very familiar with Spyce; I've actually eaten there myself. Our motivations are pretty similar but our approaches are different – they've been doing walk-in style partially-automated restaurants (although they've recently pivoted; I know less about the new direction) while our "auto-kitchens" are totally automated, more like a big/complex vending machine.
Also reminds me of https://www.chowbotics.com/
Yep Chowbotics : salads :: Mezli : all bowl-style food
They've done a great job proving out that automatic meal prep works.
I also came to say it reminds me of Spyce (in a good way!). I was I think pretty close to their number one customer for a while before I changed jobs / locations.
The business model and approach does look pretty different, but the types of meals look vaguely similar. I'm curious if that's just because when you start thinking about what types of meals can be automated (partially or fully) it pushes you in that general direction. If you don't mind sharing, what was the process like for figuring out what types of meals could be cooked by robots?
The business model and approach does look pretty different, but the types of meals look vaguely similar. I'm curious if that's just because when you start thinking about what types of meals can be automated (partially or fully) it pushes you in that general direction. If you don't mind sharing, what was the process like for figuring out what types of meals could be cooked by robots?
You can do a lot with bowl-style meals but they're also simple to assemble! That said, Spyce does a "stir fry" style approach while we do a more traditional "keep ingredients separate" serving style. We picked Mediterranean food first because we like it a lot ourselves, it's healthy and tasty, and does well with our process – but we'll be expanding to other cuisines too.
Good luck to you!
One huge frustration I've had as a customer is the unavailability of healthy fast food. I spent five months in Berkeley and ate at Sweetgreen all the time.
Now, I'm back in Columbia, SC where I work at a large university. If there was a Sweetgreen, or something similar, near campus then I would eat there 1-2x a week.
So I'm hoping that your efforts will lead to healthy and fast restaurants opening in places where they aren't currently viable.
One huge frustration I've had as a customer is the unavailability of healthy fast food. I spent five months in Berkeley and ate at Sweetgreen all the time.
Now, I'm back in Columbia, SC where I work at a large university. If there was a Sweetgreen, or something similar, near campus then I would eat there 1-2x a week.
So I'm hoping that your efforts will lead to healthy and fast restaurants opening in places where they aren't currently viable.
I’ve heard the idea of automated restaurants for a long time, but there are still overhead costs and labor costs.
You would still need proper permits/licenses and real estate/rent. Insurance. Utilities.
The prep and cooking of the ingredients still needs to be done, and then those items transported in a chilled/heated manner for food safety.
And if there are perishable goods like produce or meat, the machine will need to be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized regularly, which would require labor, a sink, etc. Unsold food at the end of the day needs to be stored/chilled properly back at the central kitchen. Ingredients will need reloading, machines may get jammed, etc. So it doesn’t seem like it will be labor-free.
Even in the best case scenario, like the sandwiches or muffins at Starbucks, or even deli items at the grocery store, the prices aren’t all that low, so I am curious to see if this can be done profitably.
You would still need proper permits/licenses and real estate/rent. Insurance. Utilities.
The prep and cooking of the ingredients still needs to be done, and then those items transported in a chilled/heated manner for food safety.
And if there are perishable goods like produce or meat, the machine will need to be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized regularly, which would require labor, a sink, etc. Unsold food at the end of the day needs to be stored/chilled properly back at the central kitchen. Ingredients will need reloading, machines may get jammed, etc. So it doesn’t seem like it will be labor-free.
Even in the best case scenario, like the sandwiches or muffins at Starbucks, or even deli items at the grocery store, the prices aren’t all that low, so I am curious to see if this can be done profitably.
Yep agreed on all of those counts. We're designing the machine and operation to keep costs low and reliability high.
E.g. ingredients are pre-prepped in the central kitchen and then transported refrigerated to the auto-kitchens. The mechanism is designed for easy cleaning and refilling upstream and reliable operation in the auto-kitchen. It's one of the only parts of our machine that's totally custom; we've filed a patent on it because we think it gives us a significant leg up over previous approaches.
Food safety is also a huge deal to us; we've been working closely with regulators from almost day 1 to make sure that our approach is even safer than a traditional restaurant (less room for error.)
And rent is also a plus for our approach: a parking spot costs less to rent than commercial real estate!
E.g. ingredients are pre-prepped in the central kitchen and then transported refrigerated to the auto-kitchens. The mechanism is designed for easy cleaning and refilling upstream and reliable operation in the auto-kitchen. It's one of the only parts of our machine that's totally custom; we've filed a patent on it because we think it gives us a significant leg up over previous approaches.
Food safety is also a huge deal to us; we've been working closely with regulators from almost day 1 to make sure that our approach is even safer than a traditional restaurant (less room for error.)
And rent is also a plus for our approach: a parking spot costs less to rent than commercial real estate!
The zoning for a parking lot is often different from that for an eatery, no?
Have you thought about installing your machine into a food truck?
I'm very excited by this.
It sounds like you have really analyzed your cost models. It's really fascinating to see the breakdown of labor and rent.
Walmart and Amazon have proven that people respond to cost more than anything, even if there is evidence those purchasing choices weaken their local community businesses and tax collection.
But, having said that, if there were a way to pay $7 for a bowl that had an innovative way to bring innovation to local employment AND had robots doing things in trucks that didn't have to pay rental in downtown, I would happily pay for that bowl over a $4 one that removed the labor entirely. Just my $0.02
It sounds like you have really analyzed your cost models. It's really fascinating to see the breakdown of labor and rent.
Walmart and Amazon have proven that people respond to cost more than anything, even if there is evidence those purchasing choices weaken their local community businesses and tax collection.
But, having said that, if there were a way to pay $7 for a bowl that had an innovative way to bring innovation to local employment AND had robots doing things in trucks that didn't have to pay rental in downtown, I would happily pay for that bowl over a $4 one that removed the labor entirely. Just my $0.02
It's hard to guess these things, but I suspect that even if we massively succeed we probably won't make much if any dent in sit-down and local/mom-and-pop restaurants (and the jobs that come with them) since we fill a very different role. E.g. I'll still be going to the local taqueria, Burmese hole-in-the-wall etc. post-Covid.
But we might displace some demand and therefore labor from fast-food options like McDonalds. That said, they're having a lot of trouble finding workers right now (~200% annual turnover in the space from what I've seen) so I don't think we'll be creating unemployment there either.
But we might displace some demand and therefore labor from fast-food options like McDonalds. That said, they're having a lot of trouble finding workers right now (~200% annual turnover in the space from what I've seen) so I don't think we'll be creating unemployment there either.
This is a terrific answer, thanks for engaging with me. It makes me feel better to hear that.
I suspect McDonalds is only dealing with high turnover because their wages don't cover living costs. Not because there's actually nobody who needs the job.
Right. If they are really desperate for help that does not turn over, they would raise wages. If your help is fungible, why bother? Or am I missing something?
They have constructed their business model around fungible people. That has upsides and downsides.
It's good for providing employment to young people without a track record and inconsistent schedules. It's bad for making any kind of career. Even managing is only barely a living wage, despite being the overwhelming task of dealing with those fungible workers.
It's kind of useful that such a thing exists. But it's disappointing that it makes them the third largest employer in the US -- right behind Yum! Brands, who do pretty much the same thing. They turn out a product that people should consume sparingly but is instead one of the main food providers.
In other words... a lot is broken. Poorly paid, disposable employees is just a tiny piece of it.
It's good for providing employment to young people without a track record and inconsistent schedules. It's bad for making any kind of career. Even managing is only barely a living wage, despite being the overwhelming task of dealing with those fungible workers.
It's kind of useful that such a thing exists. But it's disappointing that it makes them the third largest employer in the US -- right behind Yum! Brands, who do pretty much the same thing. They turn out a product that people should consume sparingly but is instead one of the main food providers.
In other words... a lot is broken. Poorly paid, disposable employees is just a tiny piece of it.
(making numbers up here for the sake of an example)
My take on the employment situation is that if currently ~10% of people are employed in the food industry, and we replace 20% of those with robots (so 2% of the whole population) then that should be an unequivocally good thing.
If there's not enough jobs to go around, but we're still producing the same amount of value then we should be supporting those who don't have work (in this case, probably by everyone in other industries doing 2% less work but getting paid the same as they are currently, and employing the people replaced by robots to take up the slack, along with some sort of subsidy).
The problem here isn't that we're working out ways to do things without human labor, it's that we're still stuck in this mindset of people having to work, even though there's plenty of resources to go around (and there should be even more with automation, not less).
My take on the employment situation is that if currently ~10% of people are employed in the food industry, and we replace 20% of those with robots (so 2% of the whole population) then that should be an unequivocally good thing.
If there's not enough jobs to go around, but we're still producing the same amount of value then we should be supporting those who don't have work (in this case, probably by everyone in other industries doing 2% less work but getting paid the same as they are currently, and employing the people replaced by robots to take up the slack, along with some sort of subsidy).
The problem here isn't that we're working out ways to do things without human labor, it's that we're still stuck in this mindset of people having to work, even though there's plenty of resources to go around (and there should be even more with automation, not less).
In principle automation is always a good thing.
Think of a society where there is a collective bank account and everyone shares their wealth. There are 100 people and there is 800 hours of work to be done. 100 hours of work in fast food. If you automate fast food then only 700 hours of work have to be done for an economy of the same size.
The real problem is fairness. Now that there is enough work for 88 people it would be unfair for the working people if those 12 people simply get to stop working. The remaining working members would go on strike. So we expect those 12 unemployed people to work regardless of whether there is enough work for everyone.
Globalization is another productivity booster that has the same effect.
The answer is to give people work, even if the work has to be created through artificial means. Infrastructure is a common example. You can just let these unemployed people build roads or houses and lay fiber for internet and so on. Infrastructure doesn't discriminate and tends to benefit everyone so ultimately even those who didn't lose their job will benefit. If that infrastructure results in a greater tax income in the future you can even finance it through debt.
Think of a society where there is a collective bank account and everyone shares their wealth. There are 100 people and there is 800 hours of work to be done. 100 hours of work in fast food. If you automate fast food then only 700 hours of work have to be done for an economy of the same size.
The real problem is fairness. Now that there is enough work for 88 people it would be unfair for the working people if those 12 people simply get to stop working. The remaining working members would go on strike. So we expect those 12 unemployed people to work regardless of whether there is enough work for everyone.
Globalization is another productivity booster that has the same effect.
The answer is to give people work, even if the work has to be created through artificial means. Infrastructure is a common example. You can just let these unemployed people build roads or houses and lay fiber for internet and so on. Infrastructure doesn't discriminate and tends to benefit everyone so ultimately even those who didn't lose their job will benefit. If that infrastructure results in a greater tax income in the future you can even finance it through debt.
> In principle automation is always a good thing
I don't agree with this, but even if I did, we all know that in practice automation leads to a transfer of wealth from the working class to the very richest, that own the automated companies.
I don't agree with this, but even if I did, we all know that in practice automation leads to a transfer of wealth from the working class to the very richest, that own the automated companies.
I wish you all the best. My kids love Sajj's chicken shwarma bowls. They split a $12 bowl because it is large, but the family bill still comes to $40/meal. Looking forward to halving that! Request your next location to be in Mtn View - San Antonio Center- near Walmart
Haha we used to eat at that SAJJ almost every day for lunch when we were working out of Max's garage!
How do you handle health inspections for fully automated food prep? did you have to get special approval from the Board of Health? and what do you do if, say, a rat jumps into a bowl?
We're working with a few different regulators to make sure we comply with health code – some of the most important things are keeping food at safe temperatures at all times and using food-safe materials for food handling. Vermin is also something to think about, actually! The main thing is not having any holes that critters can crawl into the machine through.
This is very cool, and I wish you all the best!
I relate 100% to your problem statement. It's even harder if you have dietary restrictions you're trying to accommodate, for example non-dairy, gluten-free, or low-carb. You spend a lot of your life prepping food, paying a ton of money for the small number of fancy restaurants that serve what you want, or else compromise and eat food that isn't what you want to be eating.
If there was a low-carb robot kitchen in my neighborhood serving $5 meals I'd probably be visiting that 10-20 times a week.
I could see tech like this also helping in underserved communities where healthier food is not only not affordable, it's simply not available. Lowering the capital requirements and unit cost could mean a better supply of healthier meals in neighborhoods that currently have few choices.
That being said, it's hard not to also feel a tinge of concern when reading announcements like this. Automation is coming for a _lot_ of jobs (in this case the ~14 million Americans who work in restaurants). I'm an optimist about such things, but I do also sense a concern that for a lot of people there aren't many "good jobs" left (where "good job" is defined by something that you could learn/train on the job without requiring special skills or higher education, and eventually make median income or better).
I relate 100% to your problem statement. It's even harder if you have dietary restrictions you're trying to accommodate, for example non-dairy, gluten-free, or low-carb. You spend a lot of your life prepping food, paying a ton of money for the small number of fancy restaurants that serve what you want, or else compromise and eat food that isn't what you want to be eating.
If there was a low-carb robot kitchen in my neighborhood serving $5 meals I'd probably be visiting that 10-20 times a week.
I could see tech like this also helping in underserved communities where healthier food is not only not affordable, it's simply not available. Lowering the capital requirements and unit cost could mean a better supply of healthier meals in neighborhoods that currently have few choices.
That being said, it's hard not to also feel a tinge of concern when reading announcements like this. Automation is coming for a _lot_ of jobs (in this case the ~14 million Americans who work in restaurants). I'm an optimist about such things, but I do also sense a concern that for a lot of people there aren't many "good jobs" left (where "good job" is defined by something that you could learn/train on the job without requiring special skills or higher education, and eventually make median income or better).
Thanks, yeah we've been already getting a number of customers who are vegan, gluten-free, etc. – specific dietary needs weren't on our radar originally but I'm really glad we're solving those problems.
100% agreed on the underserved communities. I remember going to Burger King with my family as a kid because that's what we could afford and was nearby.
Restaurant jobs are an important question. We think we're more likely to displace more home-cooking than restaurant demand (we don't do sit-down at all), but there's also a big labor shortage in the restaurant world right now because fewer people want to work in kitchens than used to. I'm hopeful that automation will help people be able to cook less but keep demand for dine-in restaurants largely untouched (people want to go out to eat with friends and family).
100% agreed on the underserved communities. I remember going to Burger King with my family as a kid because that's what we could afford and was nearby.
Restaurant jobs are an important question. We think we're more likely to displace more home-cooking than restaurant demand (we don't do sit-down at all), but there's also a big labor shortage in the restaurant world right now because fewer people want to work in kitchens than used to. I'm hopeful that automation will help people be able to cook less but keep demand for dine-in restaurants largely untouched (people want to go out to eat with friends and family).
Looks good, sounds good, seems to have reasonble prices.
Now combine it with something like this for the outlet/dispensing/sales:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO
http://blog.brillianttrips.com/2009/07/febo-dutch-fast-food-...
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-fast-food-snack-automat-re...
I remember them from decades ago in the Netherlands, while being there, stoned, and having the munchies.
I felt like I've been transported into the future!
Food in the wall! How cool is that?
I'd guess the Japanese have something similar in their cities.
Now combine it with something like this for the outlet/dispensing/sales:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO
http://blog.brillianttrips.com/2009/07/febo-dutch-fast-food-...
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-fast-food-snack-automat-re...
I remember them from decades ago in the Netherlands, while being there, stoned, and having the munchies.
I felt like I've been transported into the future!
Food in the wall! How cool is that?
I'd guess the Japanese have something similar in their cities.
> I felt like I've been transported into the future!
The Automat was invented in 1895 and they were common (largest national chain of eateries common) in the US in the past :)
The Automat was invented in 1895 and they were common (largest national chain of eateries common) in the US in the past :)
Exactly! We're planning to have a similar cubby-style mechanism for pickup.
Hi, Jan here from Aitme.
We are currently working on our robotic kitchen and have our prototype up and running in Berlin. You are right, there are many advantages for a concept like this.
We decided to use robotic arms for our product. They bring quite some flexibility and they are easily programmable.
Regarding the dispensers I can confirm that there is some complexity. Especially when you want to dispense different kinds of food without making tradeoffs with the quality and reliability.
Interesting perspective you bring in.
We‘ve been working 20 months on our product and are currently showcasing the prototype.
On our LinkedIn site „Aitme“ you will also find some videos.
Like to hear from you guys
To give you some impressions: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6766792...
This is a great idea and the execution sounds perfect. I don’t know about the pricing model though. For me, I see several advantages to a robot prepared meal - being safer and more consistent (same portions every time, no hair or other gross human stuff involved), not having to interact with anyone to get food, and presumably a really modern and slick ordering experience. I don’t need it to be cheaper at all, as long as it’s good quality food.
Your goal of bringing healthy food more cheaply to people is great, but based on the other advantages this tech has, I think the price should be much closer. Eg if chipotle is selling it for $10, yours should be $8 or $9 not $5.
Your goal of bringing healthy food more cheaply to people is great, but based on the other advantages this tech has, I think the price should be much closer. Eg if chipotle is selling it for $10, yours should be $8 or $9 not $5.
I think at about $7-$9 for a decent sized lunch meal in say New York or SF would demolish the competition. Sub $10 is really the magic number. Mealpass tried to do this, but as was pointed out, the costs are real, so if you wanna lower the price, usually the size or quality (or both) goes down.
If you hit about $6-7 a meal, you'll be very close to competing with home-cooked meals on cost. Sure people can go a bit cheaper, but it isn't gonna be really a significant reduction, but there will be a large time cost to it for home-cooked.
I am rooting for you. :)
If you hit about $6-7 a meal, you'll be very close to competing with home-cooked meals on cost. Sure people can go a bit cheaper, but it isn't gonna be really a significant reduction, but there will be a large time cost to it for home-cooked.
I am rooting for you. :)
Thanks!
Yeah for our broke selves the goal has been to basically get the price point down to the point where it's a no-brainer to skip cooking.
Yeah for our broke selves the goal has been to basically get the price point down to the point where it's a no-brainer to skip cooking.
A bowl of rice with some veggies, beans or protein cooked at home is way less than $6/serving. Heck an apple and a couple of hard boiled eggs is a pretty healthy meal and is less than $1.
I had a co-worker who mixed his own breakfast and lunch batches. They were fairly tasteless but he was eating on like 4 bucks a day.
The problem was taste. At some point he was getting literally depressed. I told him to do 1 normal meal once a day, and his mood improved.
Taste is important. Variety is the spice of life.
The problem was taste. At some point he was getting literally depressed. I told him to do 1 normal meal once a day, and his mood improved.
Taste is important. Variety is the spice of life.
> bowl of rice with some veggies, beans or protein cooked at home is way less than $6/serving
Not if you value your time. Cooking raw beans can easily take 45 minutes.
Not if you value your time. Cooking raw beans can easily take 45 minutes.
You don't have to stand there and do nothing when beans or a lot of foods are on a stove.
Plus, I don't get the fascination of cooking "single" portions the last decade. The amount of time it takes to cook one portion of nearly everything, you can knock out 4-8 in the same 30-40 min time span. Leftovers next day, lunch or freeze it for a little while. You spent $3/serving and you technically saved more time in the long run and hassle just because you learned to utilize the whole pan instead of a small corner.
Plus, I don't get the fascination of cooking "single" portions the last decade. The amount of time it takes to cook one portion of nearly everything, you can knock out 4-8 in the same 30-40 min time span. Leftovers next day, lunch or freeze it for a little while. You spent $3/serving and you technically saved more time in the long run and hassle just because you learned to utilize the whole pan instead of a small corner.
Yes pricing is still an open question: we're likely going to end up with a spectrum of brands, with some being more "budget" and some being more "upscale". We're excited about making good food more accessible but how to best balance that that with actually making enough of a profit is the question!
You, as an app developer, may not care about paying less. Understand that many are less fortunate than you. I can't imagine a robot in its first stages being as adept as humans at cooking and plating food. I'm optimistic it can be iteratively improved upon, however.
Chipotle is already $8 a bowl pretty much
I'm curious about whether deliverability (and temperature control/container insulation) has any impact on /which/ kind of bowl style meals you'll target. 15 minutes out, there's not too much of an impact. But once you hit 45 minutes - 1hr or beyond, certain meals start to get off limits or sub-par. Mediterranean is nice because because it's tasty, healthy, and keeps well, especially as parts of it make sense cold (pickled veggies, etc). Curries reheat with relatively little flavor lost. But what about soups? And which kinds of grain bowls are more or less amenable to the outer margins of deliverability?
You're spot on about a lot of things. Most of our customers right now pick up rather than ordering delivery, so the lag time is relatively short. But as we start adding concepts and doing delivery, we'll be thinking a lot about exactly these kinds of questions.
I hear ya. It's definitely a fascinating question, and it's just such a /big/ problem. My dad's a food scientist, and he'd tell me about Norman Borlaug, underscoring that the reason he became a food scientist is because in his opinion, by far, the largest contributors to alleviating human suffering in modern times have been people who help solve the food problem.
On that note, is nutrition accessibility something that's priority on a short-term to medium-term basis on your strategic roadmap? I have no idea how something like this would work and integrate into programs like SNAP et al, but I can only imagine that once this technology matures a bit, it could seriously impact nutrition for at risk populations which are the ones who are most vulnerable to the vicious cycle of malnutrition anyways.
On that note, is nutrition accessibility something that's priority on a short-term to medium-term basis on your strategic roadmap? I have no idea how something like this would work and integrate into programs like SNAP et al, but I can only imagine that once this technology matures a bit, it could seriously impact nutrition for at risk populations which are the ones who are most vulnerable to the vicious cycle of malnutrition anyways.
100% – making healthy food accessible to everyone is a big part of why we're doing this.
That's always a problem. Only food which can be reheated can survive Instacart/Doordash/Uber Eats delivery.
Seems like more of a limitation of the container than anything. Certainly in recent times, vaccine supply chain has pushed vacuum flask technology forward significantly to reduce the need for cold chain. What I wonder is if further commodification of this couldn't also be applied to food delivery.
Just a decade ago, I would've scoffed if someone told me my phone could have as powerful a GPU as my desktop. And yet, here we are today!
Just a decade ago, I would've scoffed if someone told me my phone could have as powerful a GPU as my desktop. And yet, here we are today!
It's not that it's technically impossible. Or even hard. The US Army has had large vacuum flasks for delivering hot food to troops in the field since Vietnam. It's that gig-type delivery services aren't going to use it. They haven't even reached the insulated bag level yet.
Perhaps not today, but it's a competitive, operationally heavy, low margin business. Doordash is public now. The growth has to come from somewhere, no?
The fundamental problem is that if you deliver in a good container, you have to get the container back. That's an alien concept in modern delivery services.
True, either that or your disposable container technology has to level up to being "good enough" while still maintaining cost parity.
The closest we can probably come to that is styrofoam, which creates another problem.
I wonder if an automated setup like this would benefit from protected atmosphere (eg co2, or nitrogen) in a simple shrinkwrap/sealed container?
Very interesting. I have lots of questions.
How does last mile supply chain to deliver the pre-prepared ingredients work?
How does fresh/stale ingredients management work?
How cleaning of the insides of the machine work?
How frequently will it require servicing? Will the entire container go to service center (swap out the container without downtime for customers) or will a service crew visit to fix/service things at night?
Have you thought of doing this as a food truck? It might make things easier during the early days.
How does last mile supply chain to deliver the pre-prepared ingredients work?
How does fresh/stale ingredients management work?
How cleaning of the insides of the machine work?
How frequently will it require servicing? Will the entire container go to service center (swap out the container without downtime for customers) or will a service crew visit to fix/service things at night?
Have you thought of doing this as a food truck? It might make things easier during the early days.
In short:
-Refrigerated vans/trucks deliver ingredients
-Leftovers get cycled out
-We've designed the machines to be easy and efficient to clean. Some of this is still secret until our patents are issued, sorry I can't say more!
-Roughly once a day, and the containers will stay where they are most of the time.
-The nice thing about shipping containers is that you can put them on a flatbed truck and move them around. That gives us some location flexibility without needing to build it into a truck.
Are there any franchise opportunities?
If so, what do those details look like?
I'm curious about launching one of these in my area.
If so, what do those details look like?
I'm curious about launching one of these in my area.
What's your plan to deal with monitoring and maintenance (cleaning)? I went to a robotic icee-style vending machine before, and while the robots happily performed their automated tasks, the end result was a puddle in a cup because something went wrong with the freezer portion. No one at the museum it was located in seemed interested in fixing or even calling someone about it, so instead it sat there costing money and brand rather than making it.
My thoughts on this:
This will be excellent for a certain type of person who likes cheap meals that are of the type that are simple to be assembled with robotic systems.
The holy grail here though I think is a cheeseburger or a pizza or a pasta bowl, which are so ubiquitous due to their immense popularity.
The TAM for bowls with lots of vegetables is a tiny fraction of that for less healthy food (that isn't expected to come all piled together in a single bowl, Patton Oswalt-style). It's probably better in a place like California where healthy food is more popular, and you have to walk before you can run, so I'm glad you're doing this in any case, but I imagine much of the market you're trying to eventually address either a) wants less healthy, more complicated food much of the time, or if they aren't in that group, b) isn't so price sensitive they care much about a $4 bowl vs an $8 bowl.
I could also be totally wrong about all of this, this is just my guess. It seems to me that in the wider market you're in (across the US) almost all of the super cheap food is also high in fat/salt/msg/sugar.
Maybe that's cost constraints, but maybe that's because the real volume is in junk food. It seems to me that the real value of robots is scale/volume, due to their nonlinear relationship of costs to output, unlike human labor, which is linear, and to eventually tackle that scale you'll need to be able to effectively and reliably produce the kind of hugely popular food types that do the most volume: the classic beeschurger and suchlike.
This will be excellent for a certain type of person who likes cheap meals that are of the type that are simple to be assembled with robotic systems.
The holy grail here though I think is a cheeseburger or a pizza or a pasta bowl, which are so ubiquitous due to their immense popularity.
The TAM for bowls with lots of vegetables is a tiny fraction of that for less healthy food (that isn't expected to come all piled together in a single bowl, Patton Oswalt-style). It's probably better in a place like California where healthy food is more popular, and you have to walk before you can run, so I'm glad you're doing this in any case, but I imagine much of the market you're trying to eventually address either a) wants less healthy, more complicated food much of the time, or if they aren't in that group, b) isn't so price sensitive they care much about a $4 bowl vs an $8 bowl.
I could also be totally wrong about all of this, this is just my guess. It seems to me that in the wider market you're in (across the US) almost all of the super cheap food is also high in fat/salt/msg/sugar.
Maybe that's cost constraints, but maybe that's because the real volume is in junk food. It seems to me that the real value of robots is scale/volume, due to their nonlinear relationship of costs to output, unlike human labor, which is linear, and to eventually tackle that scale you'll need to be able to effectively and reliably produce the kind of hugely popular food types that do the most volume: the classic beeschurger and suchlike.
>The holy grail here though I think is a cheeseburger or a pizza or a pasta bowl, which are so ubiquitous due to their immense popularity.
Totally logical, but it doesn't play out in the US market. Pizza vending machines are already a thing, but they're not prevalent. Take and bake pizzas are common though. Hell, there are some chain stores where they act like a pizza shop, but they don't bake the pizza, you still have to at home. We're just not that into the concept as consumers right now. If it's going to be automated/mass manufactured, then the convenience needs to be right at my hand/freezer/fridge. I'll wait for human made food. The closer to grandma level cooking, the more I'm willing to wait. I don't value the experience of waiting for a soulless robot.
Next part too, if you're into healthy eating, chances are high that you figured out cooking it yourself if far cheaper, no matter what, and you control the ingredients. For about $15 you can easily make 10+ portions of a veggie rice dish one day, meal prep it for lunches or what have you, maybe freeze for later. Add another $5 to that total for chicken or pork. It's $2-3 a portion with one night's 45min to an hour of cooking for half a weeks worth of food. I do this about once a month.
The economics to prepared/restaurant healthy eating isn't as good as junk food. Fresh foods spoil. Most of these places see a lot of waste because of it. The consumer pays for that indirectly.
Totally logical, but it doesn't play out in the US market. Pizza vending machines are already a thing, but they're not prevalent. Take and bake pizzas are common though. Hell, there are some chain stores where they act like a pizza shop, but they don't bake the pizza, you still have to at home. We're just not that into the concept as consumers right now. If it's going to be automated/mass manufactured, then the convenience needs to be right at my hand/freezer/fridge. I'll wait for human made food. The closer to grandma level cooking, the more I'm willing to wait. I don't value the experience of waiting for a soulless robot.
Next part too, if you're into healthy eating, chances are high that you figured out cooking it yourself if far cheaper, no matter what, and you control the ingredients. For about $15 you can easily make 10+ portions of a veggie rice dish one day, meal prep it for lunches or what have you, maybe freeze for later. Add another $5 to that total for chicken or pork. It's $2-3 a portion with one night's 45min to an hour of cooking for half a weeks worth of food. I do this about once a month.
The economics to prepared/restaurant healthy eating isn't as good as junk food. Fresh foods spoil. Most of these places see a lot of waste because of it. The consumer pays for that indirectly.
Great, now instead of wasting money on wages for local teenagers and low skill workers, more money can instead go to a global corporation!
>> They serve our menu of Mediterranean grain bowls for pickup and delivery, at a low price point enabled by our approach’s low costs.
Good luck with your startup.
What are "Mediterranean grain bowls"? I'm Greek (i.e. peak Mediterrannean) and I can't understand what that means. Could you share a few examples of the dishes on the menu?
Good luck with your startup.
What are "Mediterranean grain bowls"? I'm Greek (i.e. peak Mediterrannean) and I can't understand what that means. Could you share a few examples of the dishes on the menu?
Here they are! https://www.mezli.com/menu
Thank you. Anyway the price is dirt cheap so this has a good chance to catch on. Good luck again.
Wow!
Are there any videos of the robots working? Or none yet due to the patent work?
Are there any videos of the robots working? Or none yet due to the patent work?
I'd love to see the automated repeated cooking process as well as how hygiene/cleanup is integrated.
Nothing public yet but we're setting up a video shoot for tentatively next month! Stay tuned.
Even just photos of the container and robotics, however rough, would feed hackers' curiosity!
(But: I can see why you might want to wait to make sure any images provided also put potential food-purchasers at ease.)
(But: I can see why you might want to wait to make sure any images provided also put potential food-purchasers at ease.)
I'm sure you're familiar with Eatsa, any reflections on how you might escape the same "fate" [1]?
Besides the obvious difference that you're fully automated, I mean how will you avoid the trap of "Hey it's a lot easier to sell this food tech to others than to be in the restaurant operations business!"?
1: https://sf.eater.com/2019/7/23/20706270/eatsa-closed-tech-co...
Besides the obvious difference that you're fully automated, I mean how will you avoid the trap of "Hey it's a lot easier to sell this food tech to others than to be in the restaurant operations business!"?
1: https://sf.eater.com/2019/7/23/20706270/eatsa-closed-tech-co...
Yes! See the comment from an Eatsa veteran on this thread. Running a restaurant is no picnic, but we've actually found that it's preferable to have control over the whole operation so that the menu works well with our automation rather than having to adapt to a partner's needs from day 1. Further down the road, we do expect to do partnerships with restaurant chains.
What’s odd to me is if automated kitchens are more efficient (?), the cost savings are not passed to consumers in my experience.
All of the automated restaurants I’ve visited were the same price as traditional restaurants.
All of the automated restaurants I’ve visited were the same price as traditional restaurants.
Yes of course, why would they pass on the savings to the consumer? If people were happy to pay 10 dollars for a simple meal, that is the baseline and you can keep charging that for a long time.
Unlike real restaurants, people don't see any value in interacting with real people when they go to McDonalds, so by removing that aspect you are not making the product worse, hence you can keep the same price.
Unlike real restaurants, people don't see any value in interacting with real people when they go to McDonalds, so by removing that aspect you are not making the product worse, hence you can keep the same price.
Ah, smart move running the test process with people first, then rotating towards automation. What estimates do you have around cost reduction/efficiency gains with your approach (given capex)?
Capex per location is looking like it'll be 15-30% of a fast-casual restaurant; variable costs will be about 50% ($3ish of ingredients per meal instead of $3ish of ingredients plus $3ish of on-site labor) when compared to a fast-casual restaurant.
Stoked for you, would eat, bring on the robot-chow-giving overlords
I really hope you socceed and manage to spread globally. (I'd loev to have one of your restaurants around the corner in Maastricht, NL, where I live.
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Can you explain how your central kitchen fits into this? Because you don’t mention any automation there. Are enough of labor costs concentrated in the in-restaurant prep such that it’s economical to automate that while still doing the central kitchen work with actual people?
This is amazing sounding. I wish nothing but the best for you guys.
Edit: just saw it's mediterranean food. Cheers
Edit: just saw it's mediterranean food. Cheers
This is super unique, and very exciting stuff. Indian rice varieties will be a great fit for this model.
Good luck!
Good luck!
Yes we're planning to launch an Indian menu in the future!
How do you handle failures? I like the idea, but am worried about my ability to shake a shipping container to make my stuck grain bowl fall out.
Other startups that went this route found they still had to have a person on-site.
Other startups that went this route found they still had to have a person on-site.
We've also been super concerned about reliability because a lot of earlier companies in the space have struggled with it.
A lot of our IP is actually around reliability so I can't share everything but the high level of it is that: 1) We design every system with reliability as a top priority. 2) We're building in several layers of fault recovery mechanisms. 3) Most of the steps of our process have redundancy built in, so that even if something fails everyone still gets their lunch until a tech shows up.
A lot of our IP is actually around reliability so I can't share everything but the high level of it is that: 1) We design every system with reliability as a top priority. 2) We're building in several layers of fault recovery mechanisms. 3) Most of the steps of our process have redundancy built in, so that even if something fails everyone still gets their lunch until a tech shows up.
Thanks for the detailed reply. When you are ready for larger scale deployments shoot me an email, I'm particularly skilled at breaking things in interesting ways.
We'll add you to the QA volunteer list ;)
Exciting stuff! So where's the $3 bowl on the menu? (chuckle) Its great to see each customization option doesn't have a separate price line on it though!
Super cool!
1. How many bowls can this produce per hour?
2. Do these machines have the capacity to hold two cuisines at once? E.g. Mediterranean and Indian?
We're shooting for 200+ although it's going to take some R&D to get there. And yes! But that's also in the future – for now we're focused on nailing one menu.
On your website it says:
> Prepared at KitchenTown by Chef Eric Minnich, former Chef de Cuisine of Michelin-starred Madera.
I thought robots were preparing the food? What's this about?
> Prepared at KitchenTown by Chef Eric Minnich, former Chef de Cuisine of Michelin-starred Madera.
I thought robots were preparing the food? What's this about?
From their website:
>The Mezli founders teamed up with Eric Minnich, a classically trained chef with experience at Michelin-starred restaurants, to develop a menu that a robot can confidently execute 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because there are no humans involved or expensive rent to pay, that means you can get a cauliflower and turmeric rice bowl for $4.99.
I guess he's the chef that created the menu
>The Mezli founders teamed up with Eric Minnich, a classically trained chef with experience at Michelin-starred restaurants, to develop a menu that a robot can confidently execute 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because there are no humans involved or expensive rent to pay, that means you can get a cauliflower and turmeric rice bowl for $4.99.
I guess he's the chef that created the menu
> Our human-powered ghost kitchen is dishing out our Mediterranean menu from our San Mateo location (Stop by! https://order.mezli.com). At the same time, we’re building our full-scale food-safe v2 prototype and are shooting to have it up and serving customers later this month. Once our auto-kitchen is working reliably and is robust enough to handle a few knocks, we’re going to start forward-deploying it to parking lots and garages in the Bay Area to test out our operational model. Then, it’ll be time to build multiple auto-kitchens and eventually develop multiple concepts so each auto-kitchen rotates to a new menu on a regular cadence.
New menu? Ugh.
I think people underestimate that Americans have a hunger for homogeneity when they go out for fast food. Everywhere in the continental United States, a hamburger from McDonald's tastes the same. If I find a few things I like from a restaurant, that's what I am going there for. If I want to be surprised, I will go somewhere new.
I think people underestimate that Americans have a hunger for homogeneity when they go out for fast food. Everywhere in the continental United States, a hamburger from McDonald's tastes the same. If I find a few things I like from a restaurant, that's what I am going there for. If I want to be surprised, I will go somewhere new.
What? $4.99? Is this a dream come true?!
Robotic food prep is a good bet if you believe that minimum wages will be sharply increased.
Awesome! Very excited to see this come together.
Would be nice to see videos of the prototypes
Can we have a look in the kitchen? :)
Sorry, we're not doing public tours yet! But shoot us a note if you're stopping by ([email protected]) and I'll pop out and say hi.
Sounds fun. Best of luck.
It looks like nobody learned the lessons of Juicero.
Spending millions of dollars to create special-purpose robots that can make a grain bowl that can trivially be prepared by humans. The cost of the robot would exceed multiple years of annual salaries for a full restaurant of this nature. And you didn't even manage to eliminate the need for human employees: you still need employees to maintain and service the machine, to clean up the facilities, to stand by when the machine fails, and to drive the robots around. And those employees will also be more specialized, and thus more expensive to pay, then the cheap line workers they would theoretically be replacing. Plus, there's the central food kitchen where humans would be doing the bulk of the actual food prep work.
Your other statements support the idea that you guys don't actually know how restaurants (or restaurateurs) work, and you're acting like being Stanford grad students gives you some sort of amazing insight that nobody else in the restaurant industry has thought of before, like digital signage (which every new restaurant in the past few years already uses), or using food trucks in parking lots to avoid paying for rent (food trucks have been around for a decade), or partnering with restaurant chains and chefs (few if any of whom would partner with you because it would irrevocably damage their brands). And let's ignore the magically fuzzy math on how a special purpose grain bowl robot is somehow cheaper than spending 5 minutes on training somebody to put grains, then toppings, then sauce, or how spending millions on robots up-front before the restaurant succeeds is somehow financially more prudent then paying for labor costs on an operational basis where said labor can be increased or reduced as necessary.
Like most restaurant chains, we do the bulk of our prep in a central kitchen Yes, fast food restaurant chains do this. Not salad chains, because there's a limited shelf life for freshness once you prepare grains and greens. It's measured in minutes. Nobody wants to eat limp greens or stale grains. You've basically just stated that your food will never be fresh, and that's an absolute restaurant killer in the healthy food space.
eventually develop multiple concepts so each auto-kitchen rotates to a new menu on a regular cadence. Many restaurants have launched with this idea. Few stick with it, because food waste is the second biggest controllable expense after labor costs. Changing the menu regularly means more food waste.
So, all in all, you've just created a business model doomed to failure: high startup costs, high operational costs, high prices or unrealistic VC-funded below-market pricing, and stale food. This might work in the Bay Area, but it won't take off anywhere else.
My advice would be to pivot away from this "special purpose" grain bowl maker and make something useful. Like a general purpose arm that can do everything a human chef could do. That would be valuable.
Spending millions of dollars to create special-purpose robots that can make a grain bowl that can trivially be prepared by humans. The cost of the robot would exceed multiple years of annual salaries for a full restaurant of this nature. And you didn't even manage to eliminate the need for human employees: you still need employees to maintain and service the machine, to clean up the facilities, to stand by when the machine fails, and to drive the robots around. And those employees will also be more specialized, and thus more expensive to pay, then the cheap line workers they would theoretically be replacing. Plus, there's the central food kitchen where humans would be doing the bulk of the actual food prep work.
Your other statements support the idea that you guys don't actually know how restaurants (or restaurateurs) work, and you're acting like being Stanford grad students gives you some sort of amazing insight that nobody else in the restaurant industry has thought of before, like digital signage (which every new restaurant in the past few years already uses), or using food trucks in parking lots to avoid paying for rent (food trucks have been around for a decade), or partnering with restaurant chains and chefs (few if any of whom would partner with you because it would irrevocably damage their brands). And let's ignore the magically fuzzy math on how a special purpose grain bowl robot is somehow cheaper than spending 5 minutes on training somebody to put grains, then toppings, then sauce, or how spending millions on robots up-front before the restaurant succeeds is somehow financially more prudent then paying for labor costs on an operational basis where said labor can be increased or reduced as necessary.
Like most restaurant chains, we do the bulk of our prep in a central kitchen Yes, fast food restaurant chains do this. Not salad chains, because there's a limited shelf life for freshness once you prepare grains and greens. It's measured in minutes. Nobody wants to eat limp greens or stale grains. You've basically just stated that your food will never be fresh, and that's an absolute restaurant killer in the healthy food space.
eventually develop multiple concepts so each auto-kitchen rotates to a new menu on a regular cadence. Many restaurants have launched with this idea. Few stick with it, because food waste is the second biggest controllable expense after labor costs. Changing the menu regularly means more food waste.
So, all in all, you've just created a business model doomed to failure: high startup costs, high operational costs, high prices or unrealistic VC-funded below-market pricing, and stale food. This might work in the Bay Area, but it won't take off anywhere else.
My advice would be to pivot away from this "special purpose" grain bowl maker and make something useful. Like a general purpose arm that can do everything a human chef could do. That would be valuable.
Your website is rather slow
there is no RANDOMIZED, controlled study that proves this kind of food is healthy. it isnt proven to be healthy. it likely isnt healthy. foods that are labeled "healthy" like orange juice and brown rice are likely very unhealthy and probably cause thousands of preventable deaths every year. if elon musk is not allowed to call his cars self driving, then people should not be allowed to peddle "healthy" food that isnt shown to be healthy.
The three of us met as grad students at Stanford where we were all working on different things – I was doing AI research before dropping out of my PhD, Alex G was in a robotics lab (and just finished his PhD!), and Max was in aero/astro. We worked on a variety of classes, research, and side projects together, but we wanted to start a company and none of our ideas were looking particularly commercially viable. Then, as I was winding down a project building an autonomous weeding robot, it crossed my mind that one of my own biggest daily frustrations was something that was worth building a company to solve.
That frustration was that eating well in America requires spending a lot of time cooking or a lot of money buying meals. In grad school, I didn’t have enough time to cook every meal, but I also couldn’t afford to spend $10 or more at Chipotle, Sweetgreen, etc. It turned out that most of my friends, in and out of grad school, had the same problem. So, with Alex G and then Max as well, I started looking into why good/healthy restaurant meals in America are so expensive.
It turns out that a lot of it comes down to costs that are passed down to customers. An average Chipotle restaurant costs a million dollars to build and runs up a $600K/yr bill for on-site labor. That all gets passed on to customers, so that a $10 burrito bowl has only about $3 worth of ingredients in it, but also $3 of restaurant labor and $4 to cover things like rent and profit margin – which for most restaurants is quite thin. We realized that reducing the cost of building and operating a restaurant could unlock much cheaper great-quality meals. So Alex G and I, soon joined by Max, started talking to people all over the restaurant and automation spaces and brainstorming how to solve the problem.
It turned out that if we constrained ourselves to bowl-style meals (grain bowls, salads, soups, curries, etc.), we could use a lot of existing automation equipment off-the-shelf, put it in a shipping container and integrate it with a few pieces of custom hardware to make an autonomous restaurant-in-a-box. The hardest part turned out to be the dispenser technology – putting ingredients in a bowl reliably is not trivial! We came up with a new approach for that that we’ve recently filed a patent application on and we'll be able to talk about more publicly once the patent is granted.
Like most restaurant chains, we do the bulk of our prep in a central kitchen and then the auto-kitchen itself uses a variety of heating and finishing steps (e.g. applying sauces and dry toppings) to make bowls to-order. Unlike some food automation companies, we’re focused on creating a fully automated “restaurant in a vending machine” rather than human-in-the-loop partial automation. Getting our tech to work reliably enough to not need a human to monitor it is a challenge, but comes with benefits like being able to make more meals, faster, out of a smaller space. It also gives us food safety advantages because there’s less room for human error, and we can also do things like bathing the insides of our boxes with high-intensity UV light that kills germs but would not be very employee-friendly!
We’re also taking the point-of-view that solving food automation requires leaning into special-purpose hardware, rather than just trying to program a robotic arm to do everything a human cook does. As a former AI researcher, I can speak to the difficulties of programming arms to do even simple tasks like pick-and-place, let alone cooking full meals. And if you’re going to constrain the kitchen environment to help the arm’s actions be more repeatable, you might as well use special-purpose hardware that can do the same tasks more quickly and reliably.
We’re now executing on both the food side and tech side of things in parallel. Our human-powered ghost kitchen is dishing out our Mediterranean menu from our San Mateo location (Stop by! https://order.mezli.com). At the same time, we’re building our full-scale food-safe v2 prototype and are shooting to have it up and serving customers later this month. Once our auto-kitchen is working reliably and is robust enough to handle a few knocks, we’re going to start forward-deploying it to parking lots and garages in the Bay Area to test out our operational model. Then, it’ll be time to build multiple auto-kitchens and eventually develop multiple concepts so each auto-kitchen rotates to a new menu on a regular cadence.
At that point, we might start partnering with restaurant chains, chefs, etc. to roll out their menus/brands to many of our auto-kitchens at once. Since our hardware can make just about any kind of meal that goes in a bowl, and the side of each auto-kitchen will be a digital billboard, we’ll be able to roll out new brands to hundreds of locations overnight without having to update signage, retrain staff etc. – a sort of “AWS for bowl-style meals” model.
We’d love to hear any thoughts from the HN community. Do you have experience in the restaurant and/or automation spaces? Are you a prospective customer with opinions on our offerings? Another perspective yet? We’d love to hear your thoughts!