Burger Robot Startup Opens First Restaurant (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Creator's transparent burger robot doesn't grind your brisket and chuck steak into a gourmet patty until you order it. That's just one way this startup, formerly known as Momentum Machines, wants to serve the world's freshest cheeseburger for just $6. On June 27th, after eight years in development, Creator unveils its first robot restaurant before opening to the public in September. Here's how Creator's burger-cooking bot works at its 680 Folsom Street location in San Francisco. Once you order your burger style through a human concierge on a tablet, a compressed air tube pushes a baked-that-day bun into an elevator on the right. It's sawed in half by a vibrating knife before being toasted and buttered as it's lowered to conveyor belt. Sauces measured by the milliliter and spices by the gram are automatically squirted onto the bun. Whole pickles, tomatoes, onions and blocks of nice cheese get slices shaved off just a second before they're dropped on top.
Meanwhile, the robot grinds hormone-free, pasture-raised brisket and chuck steak to order. But rather than mash them all up, the strands of meat hang vertically and are lightly pressed together. They form a loose but auto-griddleable patty that's then plopped onto the bun before the whole package slides out of the machine after a total time of about five minutes. The idea is that when you bite into the burger, your teeth align with the vertical strands so instead of requiring harsh chewing it almost melts in your mouth. TechCrunch has produced a video about the company on YouTube.
Meanwhile, the robot grinds hormone-free, pasture-raised brisket and chuck steak to order. But rather than mash them all up, the strands of meat hang vertically and are lightly pressed together. They form a loose but auto-griddleable patty that's then plopped onto the bun before the whole package slides out of the machine after a total time of about five minutes. The idea is that when you bite into the burger, your teeth align with the vertical strands so instead of requiring harsh chewing it almost melts in your mouth. TechCrunch has produced a video about the company on YouTube.
8 years in development to build an automated burger machine? That's a long process for what is effectively a novelty burger.
"Humans are underrated." - Elon Musk.
... eat it for me?
I'm wearing my power tie.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If your burger requires "harsh chewing", you seriously need to start frequenting a different burger joint.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
No more illiterate border crossers who can't speak English taking my order and spitting on my hamburger.
They're charging double what In N Out charges, which doesn't freeze any of their ingredients. I guess teenagers are cheaper than robots...
Joseph Elwell.
Remember how the infrared grills were going to revolutionize the grilled cheese industry? What ever happened to that?
And plunking down a gimicky thing like this in the heart of SF is a bad idea. Maybe it would play at the airport, but it won't fly at that location for sure.
There's a coffee robot at the Metreon that is never used and looks really sad. Maybe they can move it to Folsom then the burger robot and coffee robot can retire together to a farm upstate.
When can we expect an episode of Black Mirror that features this machine dispensing absolutely scrumptious burgers made with some unusual meats? Or has that been done already? Either way, I fully expect life to imitate art in the near future ....
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
having my dead animal and fresh "Monsanto GMOrganic" veggies prepared by a robot. This is really the kind of personal, human touch that the current generation of oblivious, phone-absorbed children need.
Soon they will need a vacuum to suck the shit out of their atrophied bowels, while they schedule their driverless OOBER for a ride to FOMO 2050
The video is actually kind of interesting, two points from that:
It doesn't take away as many jobs as you might think, they still have a staff (someone has to keep people from smashing the machine, or clean out its greasy innards at night). They even give workers 5% of time to do something for self-improvement, like reading a book. The owner said after cooking tens of thousands of burgers he invented the machine so the workers would have less tedious and more creative things to do.
The other thought - for a fully automated system "precise" delivery of condiments is rougher than you would think. Even in the video where they could do a few runs, the robot has got some sauce on the box so that kind of shorted your exact measurements I would think (and was a bit messy).
It looked like a decent burger, would love to try.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Satoshi's Blockchain Burger
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'm lactose intolerant, you insensitive clod!
#DeleteFacebook
tut tut. The noble denizens of Britannia prefer the 'natural colouring' of teeth.
We did a survey and there was a queue and the reality is that British people overwhelmingly prefer a most natural colouring, like the aged ivory keys of a piano. Quite so, in fact, and rather very much indeed.
"In the Ford Motor Company's executive dining room, Henry Ford II rarely ate anything but hamburgers. According to Lee Iacocca, Ford complained that his own personal chef at home couldn't make a decent burger. In fact, no one made burgers as perfect as the ones at the executive dining room. Curious, Iacocca asked the establishment's chef to show him what he did to make Ford so happy with his burgers. The chef went to the fridge, grabbed an inch-thick slab of New York strip steak, ran it through a grinder, patted up a patty and tossed it on the grill. "Amazing what you can cook up when you start with a five-dollar hunk of meat," said the chef with a sly smile. (Though it would be more like a $25 hunk of meat today.)"
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Sauces measured by the milliliter and spices by the gram
How about tenth of a millimeter for sauces and milligrams for spices?
Having an excess milliliter of mayo or mustard can really ruin the balance of a burger, and of course make a mess of things.
Having an extra GRAM of spices can cause someone to cough and choke or have allergic reactions (that they normally wouldn't).
There's a Tex-Mex restaurant chain that for years and years has had a tortilla-making 'robot' the sits in their lobby and makes fresh tortillas all day long.
I remember getting MCSE training at an outfit called Ameritrain some years ago that had a 'robot' in their lobby that would fresh-grind coffee and brew it for you while you waited.
Where work right now there's a couple different designs of coffee-grinding-and-brewing 'robots', too.
There is nothing impressive or 'innovative' about this, it's jus another machine that performs one pre-programmed function: making your a gods-be-damned hamburger. The definition of 'robot' is getting about as blurred and obfuscated by assholes in marketing as they've been doing with what is and is not 'AI'.
Nothing to see here.. ..and I wouldn't even eat that shitty hamburger if you gave it to me for free.
Heh. Spoken with all the authority of someone who hasn't seen the robot in action or sampled the burgers. I need to re-read my NDA to see if I can talk about it now. I've tried the burger, the restaurant, etc. and there's plenty of innovation and cool factor around this. Most important: the quality is way above fast food burgers at a similar price point.
Time will tell. I, for one, welcome our hamburger making overlords.
Cheers!
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
So you're saying that it's a boring obvious excuse for a gory murder mystery?
That's not so much a robot as an assembly line.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And just to double-confuse people, they only accept Litecoins.
#DeleteFacebook
Wow, my kind of place.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Dick Butkus would be proud.
Sure, keep your natural enamel color if you like.. But can we do something with all that orange tarter?
I vote for Musée Mécanique in San Francisco.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You forgot to close your comment properly: needs "" at the end, otherwise everything posted after you will be read in a disingenuously smarmy tone.
Fresh cheeseburgers are "just" $2 here... served with fries and a drink.
As bad as our politicians are, at least they are not the ones forcing those retarded " Your ears are so fucking important, we will interfere with the operation of your $DEVICE" down our throats.
Oh, and fuck you very much for making US save your asses over and over again. Next time you get a Hitler or Stalin, you are all on your own.
As a former restaurant employee when I look at that machine I think about all the cleaning involved. It's like a giant Rube Goldberg machine (which I love!) but cleaning it everyday is going to be a chore. I'm eating there tomorrow!
Reminded me this X-Files episode.
The fact that you had to get msce training speaks why you have no understanding or appreciation for what they did. You still have another 20 years of education to go before you get it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Should all be automated. I'm amazed that drinks still have not been automated. So much wasted labor on that. Even fries can be easily automated.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They form a loose but auto-griddleable patty that's then plopped onto the bun before the whole package slides out of the machine
I look forward to sinking my teeth into a burger that could have been cooked, but is apparently not by default.
I have never contemplated the harshness of the chewing involved for a burger ... big ol slab of pork, yes, burger, no ...
> But rather than mash them all up, the strands of meat hang vertically and are lightly pressed together.
> They form a loose but auto-griddleable patty that's then plopped onto the bun before the whole
> package slides out of the machine after a total time of about five minutes. The idea is that when
> you bite into the burger, your teeth align with the vertical strands so instead of requiring
> harsh chewing it almost melts in your mouth.
So if I rotate the burger by 90 degrees, I'll be eating against the grain and it'll require even MORE harsh chewing? Not a problem if they can also toast an arrow into the bun to show you which way up it goes.
No tip I spit oil in your burger!
Apparently human workers get 5% of their time for 'self improvement' and it made me realise that I spend about the same amount of time writing crap on forums :(
I can't think of any burger I've had in a few decades that has required "harsh chewing".
For years, I've been like. Wow, someone needs a burger that's easier to chew because this burger in my hand is impossible to bite into. NOW, THIS, FINALLY!!!!! I can chew knowing I will finally get through a burger prior to muscle fatigue of the mouth hampering my latest attempt.,\
the coffee robot in Metreon makes surprisingly good cappuccino. however i have had better coffee but not that consistently.
And when you refuse to leave a tip the Robot will collude with your self driving car to try to kill you or if that does not work drones will start to attack you wherever you are. So remember to leave a tip for our robotic over lords even if they have no use for money.
What is the quality control abilities of these automated food preparers? If a cockroach crawls onto the burger does the robot flick it off? Can it recognize foreign matter on the burger like plastic bits or a sheet metal screw? Creating burgers, like much food prep, is part art (chef) and part repetitive motion (teenager). Sure, I have to go to Chick filet to get my pickles evenly distributed, unlike the other burger joints where they stack them in the middle, but at least humans are looking at the pickles to make sure they are the right color, or even pickles! No thanks, I'll go to a real burger joint, or in-n-out, where I eat once a month (no regrets). If you complain about the tiny patties, get a 3x3. They're quite good. As previously posted, humans are underrated. You can program a human to make a burger in a couple minutes. Most of them have already been programmed to recognize a bad pickle.
8 hours sure
8 days yea doable
8 weeks months year no way
Linux modi 2.6.26-2-parisc
Some hoodlums the next table over did a 51% attack on my burger.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Gotta love those fat US keyboard warriors posting from their mom's basement... so much spirit!
The best name for a restaurant they could come up with is 'Creator'?
Your sig here!
They missed a great opportunity. Successful businesses can't do that too frequently.
That's one way to use up all that mining heat.
Wow, there sure are a bunch of butthurt 'robot' fanbois who like shitty machine-made hamburgers, who have mod points. I guess you fanbois would like your cheeseburgers in a can, too, so you don't have to go outside and talk to other human beings, either. Just order a case of them at a time, and wait until the FedEx driver walks away before you open the door, so there's no risk of having to interact with him at all.
Mod me down to "-9.99999E99, Troll" for all I care. I actually enjoy quality food, made by a real human being, not some shitty automation. In fact I think I'll make myself a lovely bacon cheeseburger at home tonight for dinner, using only the finest ingredients and apple-smoked bacon, lovingly made by Yours Truly. Anything made by another human being, even if you're the only one eating it, is orders of magnitude better than anything any shitty machine assembles. FFS you may as well just have a vending machine spitting out some frozen thing that gets microwaved. Guess some of you have no taste.
Can you explain what this "robot" does that radically differs from what a human does when making a hamburger? Because I watched the appallingly shitty video they have for it, and I don't see anything that wouldn't also be done by a human. Slightly different tools, but that's it. It grinds the meat, slices a fresh bun in half, toasts it, seasons the meat, cooks it, slices tomatoes, shreds lettuce and cheese, applies sauces, and then stacks it all up.
What do humans do that makes their hamburger superior and "quality"?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I prefer my burgers not too particular, not too precise.
Can you tell me that this so-called 'robot' (just an automated machine, like in my several examples) actually understands what it's doing, that a living being is going to put that thing it's constructing into it's mouth and swallow it, and that it's taking care in what it's doing because it's not just part of a car it's putting together, or a washing machine, or something else that factory robots do? Does it know if it makes a mistake? Can it take Special Orders and make me a custom hamburger? Does it know the difference between Rare, Medium, and Well Done? Does it have enough smarts to give a fuck? No? Then I don't want it.
If you require smarts and agency for food prep, I'm guessing you don't own a toaster, right? Because only a human with enough smarts to give a fuck could make adequate toast. Or coffee. Or popcorn.
Why would it need to understand what it's doing? One part of this thing is a toaster. I'm assuming that you're ok with that part of the automation. Why not the slicing of veg? The grilling of meat? It's the same thing.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor