San Francisco’s Newest Fast Food: Healthy, Cheap and Served by Robots

It was a big thing in New York in the middle of the 20th century; Horn and Hardart had about 60 locations. But it didn't grow beyond big cities. Once McDonald's, with their "Speedee Service System", was invented, the fast food industry took a different path. Cafeteria-type operations, with their bulk precooked food, started to decline, and today they're almost gone.

This new Automat-like thing is really a cook-to-order, you-pick-up operation, like most eateries in mall food courts. It's not clear what value all the little windows add. The kitchen side is not, apparently, automated beyond usual fast food levels.

Touchscreen ordering has been tried many times. McDonalds, Wendys, and White Castle have deployed it at some locations. But it hasn't really caught on. If you want to try it, Specialties, an SF bay area lunch chain, uses it. It's worth looking at again now that tablets are cheaper. Slow people at the ordering kiosk can bottleneck the whole system, but if you have lots of cheap tablets available, everybody can work their menu in parallel.

I've been expecting The Counter, a local high-end hamburger chain (hamburger and fries, about $15 plus tip) to go this route. They give you a plastic order sheet and a grease pencil. Their user interface had a problem; the original grease pencils were too big for their closely packed check boxes. They've since upgraded to sharper grease pencils. There are still problems with check boxes being scrubbed out after you hand in your worksheet.

If you're really into the mechanics behind fast food, see "http://www.qsrmagazine.com". They have an article on "Eatsa", from a industry perspective.[1] The kitchen is not automated, but it's organized on the "machines should think, people should work" principle: "The Eatsa team worked to take the complexity out of the kitchen as well, with each employee responsible for a singular task, paired with a system that tells them exactly what goes into each bowl and in what order, increasing the speed of service."

[1] http://www.qsrmagazine.com/news/tech-forward-concept-makes-f...

It's called "eating out of the wall".

They were universally reviled when I visited Amsterdam years ago. I don't think I even tried.

A friend wanted to open a FEBO franchise in London too.

The failure of hot food vending machines to become more widely adopted over the last century, even in venues already selling only pre-cooked food with minimal service, is a pretty good indication that many customer service workers who could have their jobs automated out of existence by better technologies in future will end up keeping them.

Not really a paradox, eating all day with no moderation is bad, quite simple.

Don't forget the very large portions offered at many of these fast food outlets.

I must be getting ripped off--they always charge me extra for fries.

Fries are a side, and you can also get sides at Eatsa (300 calories for chips and guac). And if you don't find a big mac filling, you're probably not going to find 500 calories of quinoa and veggies filling either.

Here is a robot:

http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Servitude.mpg

And another one:

http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Empathy.mpg

Interesting, I was not aware of that, but it just seems like there would be a lot more bank tellers if not for ATM's. It may not be a good example, although, on the other hand, it might be prescient in that food service workers will probably not ever be completely replaced perhaps for the same reason bank tellers haven't, there is a segment of the population who wants to be served by a human whether at a restaurant or at a bank. It might end up being a similar percent mix in the end ?