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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

> Mac’d is a build-your-own mac and cheese restaurant that lets customers choose their own adventure from the beginning.

Is this for real? I mean I love a good mac and cheese as much as the next guy but it doesn’t strike me as anywhere near the usual markets targeted by start ups.

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They posted here on HN recently and I went and checked out their menu. And while it sounds delicious, I just cant believe that I, personally, would be regularly paying ~$15 for mac and cheese - let alone that be a venture backed startup.

I am already of the opinion that food is exceedingly expensive in every regard, and when even McDonald's is now $11 for a big-mac meal, I just can't believe how we aren't looking to make food any more affordable.

I'd be shocked if you could put down the entire Mac n cheese on your own... It's at least a 2 person meal and my GF and I usually have leftovers anyway.

I've eaten at MAC'D in SF, we had two people on one plate, and still had leftovers.

Haha yeah I was also a bit perplexed on this choice. But hey the team must be strong as getting past the YC partners is no easy task.

My first thought when seeing this was Peter Thiels lecture where he discussed restaurants and why they make bad choices for disruption. Would be really interested to see where/how they go from here.

MAC'D is interesting because it can use low-cost ghost kitchens (e.g. commissary kitchens and only a couple staff) and logistics middlemen (e.g. Doordash, Uber Eats) to spin up high-margin, operationally efficient restaurants. I believe they've already started to expand beyond SF. Pretty neat stuff.

Oh shit I didn't even see that they were on the list! They recently opened up a location across the street from me, at Polk and Vallejo.

It's pretty darn good, decently priced too. Food takes a weird amount of time to make, maybe because I went in a day after the new shop opened.

I wonder if it's a play similar to the coffee machine startup (whose name escapes me right now). The business is actually about putting excellent coffee robots in places that wouldn't sustain a staffed coffee shop.

I think this is CafeX.

That's the one! Thank you.

Is CafeX just a gimmick, given there have been simple vending machines that can brew and make coffee?

My understanding is that it's a bit more than a simple coffee vending machine. It uses a similar process to that used in coffee bars (I assume along the quality of Starbucks, not your favorite super-competent local shop). It grinds the coffee fresh, has high quality ingredients, etc.

Though grinding fresh and having high quality ingredients doesn't need the giant robotic arm, which serves only to move the cups around.

My personal theory is that robotic arms are cheap enough now that you can purchase relatively standard coffee making equipment and program the arm to operate it, rather than needing specially designed coffee making equipment. Throw it all in a big box, and the arm makes for a good show while also just being cheaper.

Welcome to the absurd bay area of now. YC used to fund interesting revolutionary companies (Dropbox, Stripe, Airbnb, Heroku) now it's $15 plate of Mac and Cheese, 100 percent vegan online grocery stores, and spandex pants.

It is! Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17726090

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