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.

Comments

A few thoughts after watching video

[SuperKendall]

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.