By Chuck Woodbury
ROADSIDE JOURNAL
If you happen to live near the Newport Centre Mall in Jersey City, N.J., you might want to wander over and buy a hamburger made and served by a robot. And then, please, email us to tell us how it tasted.
RoboBurger made its worldwide debut March 25 at the New Jersey mall. Cooked and then prepared in a vending machine, the burgers are promoted as “restaurant-quality.” The vending machine occupies 12 square feet and plugs into a traditional wall socket.
It’s equipped with a complex, miniature kitchen consisting of a refrigeration system to keep ingredients fresh, a griddle to cook and a dishwasher system to allow the unit to self-clean, making it the first machine of its kind.
The robotic process uses artificial intelligence, and a five-step cooking process designed to be similar to their preparation in fast food restaurants. RoboBurger grills the hamburger patty, toasts the bun, dispenses the selected condiments, assembles the burger, and delivers it hot in about six minutes for $6.99.
According to RoboBurger, its automated burger-grilling robotic vending machines will soon open in airports, malls, colleges, offices, factories and military bases across the country.
We suggest the company install them in roadside rest areas right next to the soft drink vending machines. We polled the RVtravel.com staff and most of the carnivores agreed they’d give the burgers a try.
“I started RoboBurger in my garage 17 years ago, and now there couldn’t be a better time to bring it to life and have everyone experience it,” said Audley Wilson, RoboBurger co-founder and CEO. “RoboBurger gives everyone freshly grilled, delicious burgers while ensuring a safe, contactless experience. RoboBurger always comes out piping hot and is never pre-cooked and kept warm.”
Watch out McDonald’s. The robots are coming…
Oh, and what food delivery via drone? Well, that’s another story…
##RVT1047
Humans have become too unreliable. A robot will cook a better burger than a mom and pop or fast food. Just needs the right process and raw materials. Humans have become unreliable because of high comfort. Things are too easy and people are way better off than they used to be.
Robots are coming. Embrace them. Easy to say they take a low skilled job but nobody wants that job and if they take it they do it poorly. Immigration used to help this to get people started. But nobody wants that either.
Robots are here to stay. Universal basic income that only Yang knows anything about will be needed. Until robots realize that humans are unreliable too.
Well, if the burger wasn’t cooked right, you wouldn’t hesitate to send it back to the kitchen..wink. wink!
The creation of these ‘robotic kitchens’ is just a confluence of tech, labor issues, greed and the human desire to ‘build a better mousetrap’. While I can definitely see these units being placed in locations that are not normally ‘staffed’, (rest areas, airports, convenience stores, etc…) aren’t there ENOUGH burger joints already? I’d rather go to a small, Mom-n-Pop local burger joint than a fast-food place (other than Wendy’s they aren’t good for much more than breakfast) because the quality is so much better.
Personally, this doesn’t fit in the same category as a ‘self-checkout’, because you aren’t doing any work. They do, however, displace a possible employment position. That is a double-edged sword – possible job in a remote/slow traffic location versus the possibility of a limited customer base, quality issues with the food (bored/unmotivated staff) and the ever present threat of theft/robbery. So, I won’t refuse to use one of these kiosks, but doubt I’d use it.
I’m Not going to order from a robot.
Get over the fear of contact with people,live your life..
This has nothing to do with COVID or avoiding people. Stop living your life through the ‘Fox News/OAN/Brietbart’ filter.
Jeffie, must be a subscriber:-)
You are soo right, its much better to live it as clinton news network , the leftist way !
Hide, hide and sniff away !
A safe “contactless” experience. I can remember enjoying interaction with people cooking food for me.
That was in the day when people had a good work ethic. We started eating out and inside places not long after we could. We now have gone back to take home and curbside pickup, because we are tired of dealing with people hating to have to work. They got the higher salaries they wanted and are grumpier than ever.
After 30 years in the restaurant business, IMHO these robots are nothing but an entry level job killer. Just like self serve checkout lines in grocery stores, I refuse to use them. Maybe I am old school, but even if these are lower paying jobs, they are needed by someone. Not everyone can be a 100k a year remote programmer.
I agree about the “job killing” self-serve stuff but I don’t think these burger machines will displace anyone. It seems they are planning to put them in places that don’t have restaurants already. Since we don’t buy burgers ‘out’ anyway, I doubt that we’d try this, but I would stand by and watch someone ELSE buy one.
I agree with the post, I also will not use the self serve check out. Human interaction is better and I will not help the bottom line by displacing an entry level worker job who really may need that job.
I’ll try it.
Is the robot smart enough to take multiple orders? Or does it only take 1 order every 6 minutes?
In other words how much time is needed between burgers popping out the shute?
Are they numbered? How do you know whose whose?
Try to search it- maybe there’s something there. Unless the thing gets a bad rap right away, I’ll try it too when it’s gets closer to me.
https://theroboburger.com/
Thanks Cheryl!