According to an SEC filing in May, Momentum Machines, a robotics startup, has gotten about $18 million in funds for its development of robots that could potentially replace kitchen workers in fast-food restaurants. In the past, the robotics startup has gotten investments from big-name venture capital (VC) firms like GV (formerly Google Ventures) (LON:$GROW) and Khosla Ventures (traded privately).
Momentum Machines first debuted its robot back in 2012. In an hour, the machine made 400 made-to-order burgers without any human aid. It can slice veggies, grill patties, and assemble and bag burgers all by itself. Since its robotic debut, the company has started developing its first restaurant that will be run by these hamburger-making robots. Planning began in June of last year and is set to be located around San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. No opening dates or expected completion dates have been announced yet.
Whether or not customers will take to Momentum Machines’ restaurant is still up in the air, but San Francisco is no stranger to robots in their restaurants. In 2015, a vegetarian restaurant Eatsa that opened downtown made use of an automated order and pick-up process. Since then, the restaurant has expanded to other major cities like New York and Washington, DC.
Besides Eatsa, Yelp’s (NYSE:$YELP) Eat24 make use of robots to do deliveries in San Francisco. San Francisco’s Cafe X also use automated robots to serve and make coffee to customers. The strong presence of AI, along with evidence that the growing tech could replace a large number of workers, has prompted talks of implementing “robot tax” in order to contain the economic disaster that robot workers could bring.
However, it seems that a full robotic workforce won’t come into fruition for the next little while. Although it’s taken line cooks out of the equation, Momentum Machines’ restaurant still need human employees to work front-of-house and in custodial maintenance. In fact, instead of cutting down job growth, the robotics company told Business Insider back in 2012 that a kitchen run by robots could actually encourage it. This is because, if it becomes a success, Momentum Machines will be able to hire new employees to further develop their technologies and work at additional restaurant locations.
While no concrete announcements have been made regarding what the restaurant might be like, a Craigslist job posting gave the public a small glimpse of what the burgers would taste like. The post, no doubt aiming to hire front-of-house and custodial employees, read, “The burgers sold at 680 Folsom will be fresh-ground and grilled to order, served on toasted brioche, and accented by an infinitely personalizable variety of fresh produce, seasonings, and sauces.”
Featured Image: twitter
