We previously told you about a machine that automatically makes you a Pizza to your order in jig time. Now, there’s a Burger robot that mechanizes the prep for your custom order in just five minutes. What might this mean for the future of the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) sector?
The Creator Burger-bot kitchen: I expected it to be a lot bigger and more angular in design.
But it’s San Francisco, and they just had to make it curvy where they could,
for esthetics, not to mention the natural wood ‘waves’ for the base…
We also surveyed a so-called trend toward the 3D printing of novelty food items from the most basic of nutritional compounds. That was billed by its creators as the first step toward a Star Trek -like food Replicator. (A very small first step, I think you’ll agree.)
Burger-bot has been a long time in development…
Now, there’s a start-up Burger joint in (where else?) San Francisco, which has created a Burger-building robot. The bot does it all: grinds the Meat, cooks the Patties, grates the Cheese(s), dispenses the condiments, toasts the Buns, and assembles the Burger just the way you ordered it. The creators of Creator (the name of the resto) say they are focused on two things: making the best burger you ever had for just (US)$6 and maximizing service to the customer.
Creator’s human masters say they’ve worked for eight years to perfect their system and they’re easing their way into full service, opening for lunch only, just two days a week, for now, with a limited number of pre-set menu items. As the system evolves, they’ll launch full, custom Burger making and open for supper, too. No word if they’re planning a version of their machine to produce custom Breakfast Sandwiches, but it stands to reason…
Analyzing the concept…
Weather the Burger is the best you’ve ever had is up to your own own, subjective judgement. But the Burger-bot does ensure that, if you order exactly the same thing every time, you’ll get exactly the same Burger, every time. But Creators’ CEO and co-founder Alex Vardakostas told TechCrunch. “We spend more on our ingredients than any other burger restaurant.”
If that’s so, how can they pay their staff the (US)$16 an hour Vardakostas claims is in the budget? The robot factor. Bots don’t need any holidays, don’t take breaks or go to the bathroom. And they don’t need to be entered in the payroll system, where employers and employees alike get hit with taxes and other costs, and employers get hit with one of the most burdensome, annoying and time-consuming aspects of their businesses’ book work.
My take…
On the face of it, the rise of the Burger-bot looks like a good thing for the resto owners, the staff and the customers. Win, win, win. Maybe…
But there’s one variable in the equation that Vardakostas doesn’t address: the staffing factor. He employs far fewer staff than conventional; Burger QSRs. The only humans in the kitchen – one or two at most he hints – are there to fill the ingredient hoppers of the machine and convey finished Burgers to the front of the house. A few servers will deliver the food from there to the customers.
This means that, in spite of the (US)$16 dollars an hour wage Vardakostos offers, he’s creating far fewer jobs than conventional Burger joints. And that would equate to huge layoffs in the QSR sector in future, if other Burger vendors and purveyors of other foods that can be mechanized adopt the technology. Is that really a good idea, from a for the good-of-society and economic standpoints?
I also recall that the maintenance of mechanized food production technology places a dreaded burden for staff, one that is often left to fester. “Why are McDonald’s soft serve machines so often ‘broken’?” a regular procession of posts to food blogs asks. It’s because the staff don’t want to clean them, which is mandated between every filling of their ingredient hoppers. It’s one of the worst jobs in the store, more than one former McD’s employee has confessed to news distributors. Get rid of all but a couple of people in the back, and you’ll create the potential for massive cleanliness and contamination issues in the ‘kitchen’. After all, the Burger-bot is just a big, complicated food-handling machine!
The Bottom line…
Unless they invent a self-servicing Burger-bot, I fear the idea is here before it’s time and will fail, of not because of the cost of the machines, then because of the drawbacks as I’ve enumerated in previous paragraphs. We’ll see…
~ Maggie J.