Burger Robot Startup Opens First Restaurant
I design restaurants. I&#x27;m well versed on all the latest trends in food technology. I helped a few companies grow including some that have hit national news. I work with some international chains spanning 200+ restaurants and have worked with a couple fortunre 500 companies. I&#x27;ve met some famous chefs as well. Visited a few factories that span 2 square miles that produce only equipment.<p>I can tell you people want to buy the cheapest stuff possible to get stuff done. Unless they&#x27;ve tried the cheapest stuff possible, and realize that paying more for extra features might be worth it(but not always sometimes the cheaper things are better). The only end users that would use this are high-end establishments willing to invest in both footprint space, maintenance, and high upfront cost. The 2nd market would be for the marketing appeal in an open kitchen and the cool robotics. The 3rd market would be for someone who wants to cook patties but need a self contained hood system, and those run for about $10k, so adding an initial investment might be worth it.<p>Some of the problems that this robot solves are solved by independent machinery already.<p>- There&#x27;s already machines that cut, slice, and toast buns on a timed conveyor belt. Examples: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bellecocooking.com&#x2F;services.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bellecocooking.com&#x2F;services.html</a> . These are used in panera bread<p>- Someone dedicated to burger flipping is generally cooking multiple patties all in one go. There are also few pieces of machinery that broil on both sides at specific cooking curve temperatures, so you cook a patty like you would a panini. This eliminates the need for &quot;flipping burgers&quot; producing a more consistent dining experience, with an operator needing to attend to the beeping noise when the burger is finished. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taylor-company.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;products&#x2F;commercial-grills&#x2F;commercial-grills" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taylor-company.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;products&#x2F;commercial-grills&#x2F;...</a><p>- Cutting onions, tomatoes, and lettuce is a completely unnecessary step. Most places would buy from sysco or another food distributor that precuts it at a factory.<p>When we look at labor intensity of making a burger, tasks are generally divided into the following approach<p>- 1. One person flips burgers and handles raw meat only (Cross contamination)<p>- 2. Another person assembles the burger + the precut veggies + adds sauce + assembles + wrapping it.<p>- 3. Another person handles the register (Cross contamination)<p>- 4. Same person usually calls number and delivers person the order<p>------------------------------------------------------------------<p>While one person can fulfill multiple roles, you have to swap out gloves constantly (cost of swapping tasks), so its more feasible to have a dedicated person to each task. The most important step in making a burger is the patty itself, its the MVP and the longest step in the process. Assemblying the burger is already fairly precise as well, there are specialized squeeze bottles for dispensing specific amount of sauce, everything is precut, etc.<p>The actual burger bot production line style is not new. There are a few pieces of specific foodtypes that capitalize on assembly line production inside of a restaurant, these are the following:<p>- Donut production (Krispy Kreme). Step 1 would be dipping the donut in a fryer, step 2 is coating it with sugar and frosting, etc. When you think of assembly line production inside a physical kitchen, this is the first thing that comes to mind. They machinery operates automates step 1 in the process. Example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0l013vVp3OU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0l013vVp3OU</a><p>- Japanese restaurants in Japan. Or go to a fancy McDonalds, Wawa, airport restaurants, etc in the states. Many times you&#x27;ll see step 3 automated, because let&#x27;s face it I&#x27;d rather deal with a kiosk that never makes an ordering mistake over some fresh hire from some high school. Step 4 is sometimes automated in Japan as well with conveyor belts, especially in sushi restaurants. You&#x27;ll see steps 1 and 2 automated with specialized sushi packing rice machines and rollers. Example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=R47tfK1dna8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=R47tfK1dna8</a><p>- Sandwich prepackagers for grocery stores. Tesco is a good example. This is a good example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HS_hnmHWEcg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HS_hnmHWEcg</a>. But the thing with this though, when you scale to an industrial level - your demands for production are consistent and predictable. This is not true for restaurants. Some hours are incredibly crazy while some are incredible dead (3pm to 5pm). Certain reasons might be booming others might be slow, depending on a number of factors. Not all restaurants cater to the same crowd - some cater to locals, others tourists and convention goers, etc.<p>- In addition, Step 4 is currently being automated by many companies. Servers and hostsess are generally not the MVP in a fast casual dining restaurant, people come for food not service. Think of delivery based robots, there&#x27;s a couple of them I can&#x27;t remember their names offhand.<p>- Burgerfi merges step 3 and 4 so the service staff knows where you are sitting for that order.<p>------------------------------------------------------------------<p>This machine is looking to do both assembly and cooking. Unless this robot provides more value than its costs (upfront cost, maintenance, footprint oppurtunity cost) vs 2 waged employees, most business owners won&#x27;t go for it. There are machines such as the misorobot that capitalizes only on the raw meat step, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;misorobotics.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;misorobotics.com&#x2F;</a>.<p>You can&#x27;t really compare this same process to something like subway. Everything at subway is already either precooked so cross contamination with raw meat is not an issue.<p>Next, lots of moving parts or generally relying on one &quot;assembly line&quot; production has a few fatal flaws. Namely, these are the following:<p>- 1. Lots of moving parts means potential for many things to break.<p>- 2. If your entire burger making process relies solely on the machine, you are screwed if it breaks on rush hour. Anyone who throws their eggs in one basket doesn&#x27;t know risk management.<p>- 3. The veggies are not refrigerated. This is a health hazard if you aren&#x27;t moving enough burgers at a time. Looking at the prototype this could be implemented though, since veggies are all roughly next to each other. This unit comes to mind when I saw the burger bot <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.silverking.com&#x2F;project&#x2F;lettuce-crisper-dispenser&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.silverking.com&#x2F;project&#x2F;lettuce-crisper-dispenser...</a><p>- 4. You might be limited in variations of what burgers you can make. Manual labor cooking allows for infinite customization, machines do not. Many burger chains are going for &quot;green&quot; based low-fat burgers as well, where you use lettuce leafs over burger buns. In addition, a few burger chains also stamp their logo on the bunn by burning part of the top. Some customers might request things like no pickles, double onions, etc. Machines wouldn&#x27;t account for it probably.