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White Castle wants to install robot cooks in 100 new locations
- belval 5y agoI wonder when the costs of scale will start to come in? This is interesting because it retrofits an existing kitchen, but it can't be much cheaper than just having something that was built from the ground-up to be an automated grill? Those arms are also usually in cages or somewhat enclosed for safety reasons, are employees just expected to walk around it?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jazzyjackson 5y agoMore photos on their product page, the arms are behind plexiglass. OTOH, they show an employee standing next to it while it handles baskets of hot oil. I would hope it had better safety lock-outs than that... https://misorobotics.com/flippy-2/ https://misorobotics.com/flippy-2/
- giantg2 5y agoHmm, I'm not sure if I'd trust a robot more or some new kid in that situation.
- ipnon 5y agoWould White Castle have more demand with even lower prices? Is price and not quality the factor in most people's decision to eat at White Castle or not? It seems like this won't end well for employees or the corporation because the root cause is that White Castle just isn't that tasty.
- seneca 5y agoWell, if they're saving money on labor that money can be spent in better quality ingredients. They could then sell a better quality product at the same cost and increase overall profit by, presumably, increasing sales. Completely agreed that maintaining low quality is a path to irrelevance for most of these places, regardless of automation.
- throw_me_up 5y agoPlenty of people find it tasty. Is it $20 burger tasty? No. Is it more tasty than some $20 burgers? Yes. Does it taste like garbage to some people? Yes. Does it taste great to others? Yes.
- ipsin 5y ago"The improved workflow allows for the redeployment of team members to focus on creating memorable moments for customers." I... doubt it? It seems like it would allow the redeployment of team members to "no longer working at White Castle".
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoOr in the current tight labor market, it would allow for redeployment of team members to being "no longer being seriously understaffed and not quitting to go somewhere else better."
- Nition 5y agoWell, they don't specify positive or negative memories. Maybe customers will get to remember the employees storming out, striking etc.
- jvalencia 5y agoGiven what I think the operations are likely going to face -- how to swap out one bot for another when it breaks. How to fill in the line when there's a gap. How to service the bot.
- prepend 5y agoSeems fine with me. Fast food is pretty horrible and the worst part are the employees. Let them do other, more interesting jobs. I once ordered a Big Mac and the employee forgot to put in the meat. Someone did that. They put it in the bag and handed it to me. When I returned it, no one apologized, some other employee shrugs and went back and got another one. The service will be much better with robots. And the remaining employees can be paid more, thus be smarter and happier.
- hertzrat 5y agoNot very thoughtful. Do you think fast food workers are aware of a vast number of more interesting, higher paying jobs they are able to get and are simply working at minimum wage over a deep fried for the fun of it?
- 5350-uiop-1130 5y agoGot to say I would prefer a robot then a possibly disgruntled human to prepare my food. That being said I hope we will see some kind of UBI in return for all the money that will be saved once robots take over these menial jobs.
- threads2 5y ago
- hwers 5y agoThis is kinda silly because I bet they could've made burgers with a robot long ago (mass produced and shipped in) and just heated it up from a frozen stage when you order. Part of me suspects the whole 'combining the meat with the bun' at-location component is kind of superfluous and is just there to make the food feel freshly made (despite being heavily produced). So this robot with that in mind is kind of silly.
- krisoft 5y ago> Part of me suspects the whole 'combining the meat with the bun' at-location component is kind of superfluous Sounds like a simple experiment to make :) fry up a burger, assemble it, freeze it, and try to thaw it a few days later and see how you like it.
- djbusby 5y agoWhite Castle already does that. Microwave sliders, big box at Walmart.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoRight, I bet you could make a Jimmy-Dean vending machine that has an air-fryer conveyor belt on the way out, but you'd have a hard time finding investors because your robot isn't replacing fry-cooks. Actually I'd be surprised if this didn't already exist at truck stops next to the hot dog rollers.
- giantg2 5y agoOr Japan (maybe not Jimmy Dean, but air fryer).
- GauntletWizard 5y agoThere's a real quality difference between a burger that's been reheated with bun next to meat and one without. The bun sucks a ton of moisture from the meat and makes it chewy, while becoming soggy itself. The burger is a lot colder in the center, while the outer edge of the bun becomes dry. You really do get a better experience heating them individually, even if just reheating the burger.
- bertil 5y agoThis is actually an area where automation has some significant potential. Taking orders with a menu on a webpage or an app is a classic at this point. I remember seeing not just vending machines, but a vending wall at Amsterdam Central train station where a chef would fill transparent boxes with freshly fried snacks, to be sold automatically. Cooking is an enormous working-class employer and it is getting automated — will it lower demand for work? Most people still cook their own food, so there‘s a lot more cooking service that could be sold, but at this point, the economies of scale point at fewer people manning the frier, and just one person monitoring several robots.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mywittyname 5y ago> will it lower demand for work? Commoditization of Compliments. If it's cheaper to make food using automation, then some complimentary component of food service is going to capture some of the dollars saved. For example, we could see food trucks that make your food while en route and the truck pulls up and delivers it fresh. Or, more simply, we could see commissaries/"ghost kitchens" capable of serving a larger variety of food with fewer people pop up in suburban strip malls. Maybe they could have a rotating menu. A small restaurant like that could pull down a few million in revenue each year even in less populated states, which is more than enough to pay good wages if the number of operators can be kept to <4 people. Most of them now have several operators making a limited selection of food.
- 0ldskool 5y agoCouldn't we have self-driving food trucks, each specializing in a specific food? People could have events and schedules a couple of food trucks to drive by while cooking food on the way. Fast food takes on a new meaning (fast vehicles cook+deliver food on demand). No more need for fast food restaurants because they just can transformed into a fleet of trucks.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
- pokoleo 5y agoI've been wondering: if this robot is only flipping fries, could it be made by putting the basket on a simple track, and adding an actuator to move the basket along a track? Why need an arm? My speculation: a robotic arm makes for a great press release. Actuator + track feels like a factory.
- vgeek 5y agoAfter looking at this when it was posted a few weeks ago, I thought the exact same thing. Why couldn't there just be a chain/belt driven pickup that is filled with uncooked fries from a chute above, puts it in a static cook position, then raises & dumps in appropriate bin. That seems way easier than a 3 axis robot? I would think the high motion robot would be way more prone to being out of service, too.
- jcims 5y agoAdvantage of an articulated arm like this is that it can more easily be retrofitted to existing stores with existing equipment. The photos look like they are selling more than just an arm add-on but its hard to say where they landed with the White Castle contract. Could be just something they hang from the ceiling and use existing fryers.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- forgotmyoldacc 5y agoI'm skeptical that Miso Robotics can actually deliver a useful product that outperforms or matches human labor at the same price point. They don't show clear videos of what exactly the robot is capable of, and keep buying Instagram ads to invest in their company.
- giantg2 5y agoWhite Castle already ran a pilot with the Miso 1 and then the Miso 2. It seems they see value. Maybe the tasks are different for White Castle with many small burgers vs the fewer large burgers at other places?
- djbusby 5y agoAnd the White Castle is easier to automate than other burgers. Small, sure but also limited toppings - no choices, no sauce. (McDonald's is surprisingly complex by comparison)
- to11mtm 5y agoThere are a few things that come to mind with the white castle burgers: - Square patties already designed for uniform mass-cooking - Square-ish bun (Easier to grab/guide I would assume) - Open-face Box packaging rather than a wrapper or clamshell It's a pretty streamlined design as-is, as evidenced by how quickly you can get a crave case from time to order.
- joering2 5y ago
- savant_penguin 5y agoI wonder what is the amortized cost of this robot and how it compares with the wages of the human cooks
- lkbm 5y agoIt says it's $3,000/mo. For a full time employee, that's $18.75/hr. Presumably it's most useful in places that are operating more than 40 hours a week. The tradeoff is that it can't pick up other tasks when things are slow.
- Someone1234 5y agoDownside is if an employee "breaks down" you can just call the next person on your call sheet, if a flippy breaks down, then what? You close? You have to have 50% more for resiliency? There's been plenty of innovations that have failed because while the initial price tag looks like a saving, the long term maintenance has changed the calculation. I'll be interested to see if places like White Castle are still using them after a year or two.
- xoserr 5y agoExactly, this makes no sense to me. Sorry, we have no burgers, come back later. This just looks like some corporate process improvement project that is doomed to fail but looks good on someone's resume. Google says fast food labor cost is about 25% of cost. I just don't know if that is really enough savings overall with the added expense and risk of a machine.
- kodachrome64 5y agoThis is what I'm wondering as well. Automation can do all sorts of cool things but my experience in manufacturing has shown me that machines break down all the damn time. When that happens, some poor tradesperson or engineer is under the gun to get it back up and running again because money is being lost by the minute. I'd imagine a machine running in a hot, greasy environment would need pretty extensive cleaning and routine maintenance to be reliable. Those things cost money and require diligent workers, and this is a company looking to lay off people that they're paying minimum wage.
- mehrshad 5y agoBack in the early 2010s, I was consulting with a then-budding startup called Momentum Machines (now Creator.rest), in which I was tasked with market validation for their Rube Goldberg-esque 6mx1mx2m burger-making machine (not a robot). When I'd speak with both independent and multi-franchise QSR owners, the resounding sentiment was that they absolutely craved an automated solution to replace line cooks, but they could not imagine replacing cashiers, who they believed were the face of the brand. But in speaking with the few corporate offices that would bother to even respond to us, we'd be brushed us aside as nothing more than a novelty, as they considered any introduction of automation anywhere in the food-assembly process to be a hit to their brand promise of "freshness" and "quality." Now with the Great Resignation giving employees a bit of an upper hand, I'm pretty sure the corporates are changing their tune in displacing the $15+/hr/unit meat suits ASAP. They're just waiting for the regional/tier-3 QSRs like White Castle to go all-in before making the plunge themselves. [0] https://www.creator.rest https://www.creator.rest
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago> but they could not imagine replacing cashiers, who they believed were the face of the brand. I love places with ordering kiosks (or places that let me order using my phone). It's like going to the supermarket, I'd rather wait in line to order myself even if a real person was available to take my order right away. But that auto fruit has mostly been picked already (at many places at least). McDonalds is even getting rid of its front line cashier staff now at many locations (with just one person to occasionally take cash from those who don't want to pay with a card).
- asdff 5y agoWhoever you were talking to back then were probably just pretty closed minded and set in the ways of their industry. I think if you were to have these discussions today there would be a lot more people biting since there are some examples already of automated restaurants. Customers will pay extra for this novelty and you can even continue to price your item at a premium point while reaping the savings on real estate and labor: https://sprinkles.com/ https://sprinkles.com/
- syntheweave 5y ago
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoNext: get your bag from a chute in the drivethru lane. No humans in the store at all! I'm not sure that would be a bad thing. Made-to-order food, always the same, packaged without anyone ever touching it, for a good price. Would be hard to beat.
- 0xbadcafebee 5y agoI'm envisioning a bank drive-thru. Multiple lanes, place your order on a screen, chute/conveyor belt delivers your food. Alternately, the drive-thru version of an Automat. Drive up to a wall of boxes, each of which has a meal. Scan a QR code / punch a code in, the box with your meal pops open. Robots deliver meals in the background continuously. The boxes keep the meals warm, but JIT ordering would also work. This allows scaling operations up and down around peak hours without additional resources. To increase efficiency, have a separate "ordering" line and a "pick-up" line. People who order on the app just go to the pick-up line.
- wildrhythms 5y agoTaco Bell already has some concept art depicting a contactless lift system to deliver orders to waiting customers - https://www.fox19.com/2021/08/14/taco-bell-future-new-4-lane-drive-thru-concept-restaurant-opens-next-year/ https://www.fox19.com/2021/08/14/taco-bell-future-new-4-lane...
- jrootabega 5y agoOther than the contactless/app part of it, I saw McDonaldses with this tech decades ago. It hasn't seemed to be a game changer until now. What I see here of promise is maximizing parallel service with the minimum amount of land usage. Since you'll need room for multiple cars (and in America today, that means unreasonably giant SUVs), I'm not sure how much benefit you'd get from robot cooks. Without a dining area, it would probably be a relatively spacious kitchen.
- jamiek88 5y agoI’d pay extra for guaranteed no human touch. But then if I was rich enough I’d be Howard Hughes.
- TeeMassive 5y agoOn one hand I'll be able to go to the restaurants for faster and better food which is cool for people like us with not a lot of free time, and robots are cool. On the other hand there will be a very large portion of society who will become obsolete with absolutely nothing useful for society to do.
- maximus-decimus 5y agoIf we could automate their job and decide not to out of pity, they're still useless.
- e4e78a06 5y agoWe have a huge trades shortage and COVID might force a lot of supply chains to come back at least in part to the US. The demand for new construction has never been higher either. A large portion of society that doesn't want to work on hot, dusty, dirty worksites might become obsolete with nothing useful for them to do. But there are absolutely jobs that are accessible to no-skill workers with only 1-2 years investment in schooling.
- Epiphany21 5y ago>On the other hand there will be a very large portion of society who will become obsolete with absolutely nothing useful for society to do. Almost everyone has something to contribute. The problem is that society structured in a way where most forms of productivity are undervalued. A great example of this is art. Nobody in their right mind could imagine a world without art yet there's the stereotype of a starving artist. Burger flipper robots aren't going to make or break the world.
- deutschew 5y agoI saw the movie Harold vs Kumar and I've always wondered what was so special about these tiny burgers? Are they as good as it is portrayed? It's on my bucket list lol
- whateveracct 5y agoThey have a pretty unique flavor. Very onion-heavy. I've always liked them.
- colinmhayes 5y agoHarold and Kumar is almost definitely the only reason white castle still exists. Never again will I have the displeasure of eating there.
- mbg721 5y agoOne defining feature before the last couple of years is that they were always open 24 hours. They are also nice if you are craving strong coffee that smells like grilled onions.
- jamiek88 5y agoIf cannabis didn’t exist White Castle wouldn’t either. Literal stoner food that’s open all night.
- hermitdev 5y agoThe call the burgers sliders for a reason. They slide in, they slide out. Most people don't handle the grease very well. Some people swear by them, others curse them as never again until their next time out drinking all night. I don't personally care for them at all. My wife loves them. But, I'll give White Castle credit. They know what they are and what their market is and they seem to do good business.
- BostonEnginerd 5y agoThey're delicious at 3AM when you may have had a few too many.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
- 14 5y agoI for one would welcome automation in fast food industry. Besides the fact that a teen standing in front of a vat of hot oil cooking fries and flipping burgers is a waste of time if we could automate it humans should be free of this kind of useless service, I would also enjoy getting exactly what I ordered. The robot isn’t going to accidentally add pickles or forget to add gravy or dip. I would welcome the day I don’t have to inspect my order. On my first point the only problem I see is people need money and those have forever been entry level jobs. What would replace those incomes I don’t know but standing in front of oil is not very good way to spend your time.
- pcl 5y agoOTOH the human can deal with a bunch of requests that probably will never be coded into the robot's interface. Automated systems often have a frustrating lack of flexibility.
- fundad 5y agoAlso teens who don't need money are concentrated around the areas where their parents stoke demand for service labor. There aren't enough teen workers to bank on.
- benatkin 5y agoReminds me of https://marshallbrain.com/manna https://marshallbrain.com/manna
- sin7 5y agoI already have a machine that makes white castle burgers at home. It's called a microwave. The results are not the best.
- pessimizer 5y agoBig fan of White Castle food, but they have the worst organized kitchens of any fast food place I've ever gone to. When I go there, I expect to wait as long for my food as it would take to cook it at home. Employees are confused about the menu, about who's responsible for what, they communicate with each other awkwardly, and there are probably half again as many as they need. It seems like they've put no effort into process at all. Any effort would result in service improvement. White Castle's burgers are weird and small, standardized and square, and cooked from frozen. Not exactly a general case for a burger-robot; sliders seem like they could easily be made in a vending machine. My bet is that somebody connected with White Castle is an investor, and this is a publicity stunt.
- redisman 5y agoI’m surprised if they don’t have a system to cook a whole rack of sliders in one go
- black_13 5y ago
- oblib 5y agoThe number of fast food burger and chicken joints I don't eat at anymore is pretty close to all of them. Subway was the first one I quit and that was back in the early `80s. McDs was around the turn on the century. Burger King & Jack in the Box, ect were somewhere in between those. I've had a few Arby's sandwiches since then, they're not great but were still edible last time I ate there, and that's been a couple years now. Good food will make you feel good. Those fast food joints don't do that. You notice this more when you're working physically hard. They just don't provide any real fuel to get you through that, and that's why I quit eating at those places.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cbrowne1 5y agoThere is one in Seattle at Caliburger in the Westlake Mall. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/camilo-buscaron-93739827_seattle-robotics-ugcPost-6905959768742313984-hz-b?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web https://www.linkedin.com/posts/camilo-buscaron-93739827_seat...
- forgingahead 5y agoInteresting deal for Miso Robotics - per their website, the Flippy 2 starts at $3000 per month, so that's maybe a $7.5 million deal per year assuming 2 robots per location. In terms of location costs, 2 machines with maintenance might be around $10k per month per location. Definitely a cost savings move for White Castle - I reckon 24 hour coverage with staff would be more than that. I guess there's no avoiding this - with inflation the way it is, and the inability of certain businesses to raise prices (fast food burgers at $15 a pop?), and real estate going crazy, we are certainly moving to a Star Wars type future where "droids" of some sort will be in most aspects of our lives. All this money printing has a cost. Bit sad that our kids won't have the experience of working in fast-food as their "summer job", nor will they have humans serving them from behind the counter. Cold and clinical...
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoKids can work in food delivery. They're always hiring.
- teawrecks 5y agoI don't think humans evolved to do the job of a robot. At least not as much as the industrial revolution and mega corporations would have them do. I believe humans need/want some mix of mindless (cathartic) and some creative (mentally difficult) tasks. For the last ~100 years now we've optimized our ability to create jobs that are mindless because this makes hiring easier. The side effect of this is a workforce full of people who never get to work creatively and go home feeling drained, worthless, and depressed I'm optimistic about all automation because it relieves some of the pressure of mindless work off of humans and frees them up to be creative. Now if only we had a social system in place to redirect some of the profits from automation toward supporting fellow citizens who want to do legitimate hard work on a brand new idea...