I am your overlord, may I take your order?
If you've ever been to a restaurant and thought the waiter was a bit robotic, you should try the San Francisco Mezli. The restaurant claims to be the first to be fully automated. There are no humans in there. The restaurant serves bowls of Mediterranean cereals. Honestly, it's hard to decide if Mezli is a restaurant or a very fancy vending machine.
Again, that makes sense. Only in science fiction do you have androids flying spaceships. In real life, the robot is probably the spaceship. Obviously someone is still loading ingredients into the machine - some pre-cooked - but that's about it. Some restaurants allow you to order from a computer while a human prepares your food and we've seen a few automated chefs, but nothing with this degree of mechanization.
Three humans do all the work behind the scenes, including chopping and cooking the components in an offsite kitchen. Once a day, the restaurant is loaded with raw materials. Depending on the orders, he mixes the bowls and uses an oven to finish cooking or bring the ingredients to temperature.
The restaurant itself is quite simple. It looks like a converted shipping container or trailer and only requires electricity to operate. No water, gas or even an extractor fan. It can serve around 75 meals per hour with dishes ranging from lemon chicken zaatar with turmeric rice to a bowl of falafel. With custom options, the machine can create nearly 65,000 possible combinations.
Is this the wave of the future? It's sort of a sophisticated form of the old automaton. Will it be a modern coffee machine where the bowl doesn't sit properly and the machine throws your rice to the bottom of the tray? We don't know, but we'll be more impressed when you load the machine with raw materials instead of leaving a kitchen.
Make no mistake: robot automation is coming to restaurants. We just wonder where the line is between a restaurant and a vending machine.
If you've ever been to a restaurant and thought the waiter was a bit robotic, you should try the San Francisco Mezli. The restaurant claims to be the first to be fully automated. There are no humans in there. The restaurant serves bowls of Mediterranean cereals. Honestly, it's hard to decide if Mezli is a restaurant or a very fancy vending machine.
Again, that makes sense. Only in science fiction do you have androids flying spaceships. In real life, the robot is probably the spaceship. Obviously someone is still loading ingredients into the machine - some pre-cooked - but that's about it. Some restaurants allow you to order from a computer while a human prepares your food and we've seen a few automated chefs, but nothing with this degree of mechanization.
Three humans do all the work behind the scenes, including chopping and cooking the components in an offsite kitchen. Once a day, the restaurant is loaded with raw materials. Depending on the orders, he mixes the bowls and uses an oven to finish cooking or bring the ingredients to temperature.
The restaurant itself is quite simple. It looks like a converted shipping container or trailer and only requires electricity to operate. No water, gas or even an extractor fan. It can serve around 75 meals per hour with dishes ranging from lemon chicken zaatar with turmeric rice to a bowl of falafel. With custom options, the machine can create nearly 65,000 possible combinations.
Is this the wave of the future? It's sort of a sophisticated form of the old automaton. Will it be a modern coffee machine where the bowl doesn't sit properly and the machine throws your rice to the bottom of the tray? We don't know, but we'll be more impressed when you load the machine with raw materials instead of leaving a kitchen.
Make no mistake: robot automation is coming to restaurants. We just wonder where the line is between a restaurant and a vending machine.
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