Meet Two Startups Bringing Robots to Restaurants (seattletimes.com) 75
It's a coffee shop and and robotics startup. Founded in 2020, Seattle-based Artly has seven locations in Washington, Oregon and California, reports the Seattle Times, noting that each location has a mechanically dexterous robotic arm that they're calling a "barista bot" that "makes the espresso, pours the milk, steams the foam and puts it all together, topping it off with a carefully drawn foam leaf."
[P]ressing market needs were behind the innovation. Cost concerns and high employee turnover in food services have led Artly and others to provide automated solutions to restaurants and businesses, even before the pandemic hit and brought additional challenges. Just a couple of years into operation, Artly CEO Meng Wang said the company has maintained healthy operating margins — the profit a company makes after paying for costs of production — by eliminating the biggest expense in food business: labor. For a coffee shop that would need two or three baristas, Artly needs one staffer, in addition to a barista bot like Jarvis. Artly reinvests the money it saves from labor into sourcing more quality coffee, Wang said.
Artly isn't alone in introducing robot help in food preparation. Another Seattle-based startup, Picnic, offers automation solutions for a staple of the American diet: pizza. Its food prep station can produce up to 100 pizzas in one hour using metered toppings. Since Picnic was founded in 2016, its robots have assembled pizzas in many places, including Seattle's T-Mobile Park and the Las Vegas Convention Center. The company has seen a growing interest in its robots. This summer, Picnic announced partnerships with pizzeria Moto's West Seattle location and a Domino's store in Berlin.... With a robotics-as-a-service business model, the standard full offering for operators is $4,500 a month on a 36-month contract.
But the founder also told the newspaper how their customers reacted to their barista bots: [C]ustomers were initially intrigued and excited about the robot barista, but the service was slower than with a human barista. He said customers craved the connection with the person making their coffee. "When [customers] go to the coffee shop, their expectation is to be served by a human," Yang said.
With that, Artly has focused on opening locations in shopping malls and business office buildings rather than standard coffee shops.
Artly isn't alone in introducing robot help in food preparation. Another Seattle-based startup, Picnic, offers automation solutions for a staple of the American diet: pizza. Its food prep station can produce up to 100 pizzas in one hour using metered toppings. Since Picnic was founded in 2016, its robots have assembled pizzas in many places, including Seattle's T-Mobile Park and the Las Vegas Convention Center. The company has seen a growing interest in its robots. This summer, Picnic announced partnerships with pizzeria Moto's West Seattle location and a Domino's store in Berlin.... With a robotics-as-a-service business model, the standard full offering for operators is $4,500 a month on a 36-month contract.
But the founder also told the newspaper how their customers reacted to their barista bots: [C]ustomers were initially intrigued and excited about the robot barista, but the service was slower than with a human barista. He said customers craved the connection with the person making their coffee. "When [customers] go to the coffee shop, their expectation is to be served by a human," Yang said.
With that, Artly has focused on opening locations in shopping malls and business office buildings rather than standard coffee shops.
I guess... (Score:2)
...they have no use for tips nor pockets?
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I'd be more curious about, what do they order for lunch?
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Brought to you by... (Score:2)
And no; if heating and serving "pre-manufactured slop-in-a-bag" is the business model, that's not a restaurant.
Re:Brought to you by... (Score:5, Funny)
It's more a fast food joint. But it's never going to be the same experience without the cook spitting on your burger and the server getting the order wrong.
Re:Brought to you by... (Score:4, Informative)
That's almost the entire business model for Applebee's.
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That's almost the entire business model for Applebee's.
It's the entire business model for nearly every big chain — Denny's meals are delivered by Sysco, Pizza Hut and Domino's Pizza get pre-handled frozen dough blobs... The only time the people in the kitchen really have to do anything on their own is when they cook eggs or hash browns (and those are commonly pre-prepped.) If it doesn't come out of an egg shell, it's in a bag or a can. There are exceptions, but most of them suck anyway for different reasons. Because they're paying more for labor, they spe
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Pizza Hut's dough has more oil in it than Little Skeezer's, or even Papa Murphy's.
That's what makes it good.
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Not to mention the pizza is made by someone at Pizza Hut. Just like any other pizza place.
Having the dough pre-made is not that big a deal. It's for readiness and speed.
Re: Brought to you by... (Score:1)
Denny's meals are delivered by Sysco...
Their ingredients were delivered by Sysco. That flavorless omelette and those soggy hash browns? It shouldn't require a Culinary Institute grad to figure out that those are prepared on a grill. I recall saying something about those who've never worked in a restaurant...
"Dunning-Kruger, party of one - your table is ready!"
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Denny's meals are delivered by Sysco, Pizza Hut and Domino's Pizza get pre-handled frozen dough blobs... The only time the people in the kitchen really have to do anything on their own is when they cook eggs or hash browns
Their ingredients were delivered by Sysco. That flavorless omelette and those soggy hash browns? It shouldn't require a Culinary Institute grad to figure out that those are prepared on a grill. I recall saying something about those who've never worked in a restaurant...
Found the noob who never learned to read. Get some troll skills, kid. Right now you have none so I can't even get upset with you, except perhaps by being unimpressed by your incompetence.
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Brought to you by ...
The "fight for $15".
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Anyone remember those old "automats?"
If we wanted automation, we already have microwaves at home and work. Buy something pre-made, and nuke it.
Automated coffee? Coffee-makers.
Cold drinks? Fridge.
I know idiots who have tried to open a restaurant without knowing what's really involved. Like proper food storage, permits, etc. Or even basic cooking. "How hard can it be?" There's one "unrealistic expectations" shop closing down at the strip mall at the corner. Only opened 5 days a week, noon to 8 pm, no
Overcomplicated (Score:5, Insightful)
This looks cool but it's an obscenely complicated way of doing things. Humans are great general purpose robots, but in almost all automation situations it's easier to build a customised robot rather than trying to emulate a human-at-the-controls. In this case, the robot arm they are using is about $30k plus they still need the grinder and espresso machine which are around another $5k, along with the computer vision system. Yet you can already buy a robotic bean-to-cup coffee machine for around $5-10k.
Of course that machine won't be artisan quality, but that brings up another issue - artisan coffee is a luxury product and very much about the entire experience. People pay huge margins over the cost of a Nespresso because they want to get to know their barista and have them remember their name/order etc. If you strip away the personalised part of the experience I doubt people will want to pay the huge margins anymore. It's the reason why luxury brands spend so much on the retail experience - so that you will feel you're getting value for money while paying 10x as much for essentially the same chinese made bag that you can get at a mainstream retailer.
Re:Overcomplicated (Score:5, Interesting)
the robot arm they are using is about $30k
That must include a lot of NRE. The price would be much lower if they ramp up and make 10,000.
According to TFA, they go from 3 baristas to 1. If they run two shifts, they are going from a staff of 6 to 2. So the robot replaces four people. Starbucks baristas average $12/hr. So, in theory, the robot pays for itself in four months.
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According to TFA, they go from 3 baristas to 1
The article says from 2 or 3 baristas to 1 staffer and a robot.
Watching the video, the robot is a lot slower than a barista and unable to put the cover on the cup.
So according to their own presentation their "staffer" and 1 robot setup can't replace 2 baristas, let alone 3.
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No, just a miserable solution. The goal should be integrated systems designed for automation. I will still go to Starbucks though, because I do actually like my human baristas and cashiers; I am paying for the human element and not speed. (I just make sure I have a better drink before I get there...)
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1. Universal hardware solution - no need to design a separate machine for making coffee (learn all about making reliable grinders, steamers, and everything else that goes into an industrial espresso machine), then design a burger making machine (become experts about building burger making equipment, etc), etc, etc. This simplifies design, production, maintenance, etc.
2. Risk mitigation. At $4,500 a month they can make money replacing people, and the company leasing t
Doesn't really make sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of coffee machines that will make your coffee drinks. Having a robot arm use all the tools (milk pitcher, etc.) designed for humans doesn't really make sense...
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It would if the result was better than a machine, but is it?
Re:Doesn't really make sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
So you need overly complicated, and due to the complicated higher maintenance, expensive machinery.
I blame old crappy (not all is crappy) science fiction and people who partially got their industrial design and engineering degrees from watching those shows. Probably sprinkle in some marketing where they want to fulfill some kind of expectations investors and customers have when they hear the term "robot".
In older SciFi for practical reasons robots were often depicted to be humanoid, because that way you could put an actor into a costume and call it a robot instead of having to pay a lot of money for expensive animatronics. Ironic, isn't it?
IEEE Spectrum had an article about an adjacent issue, namely prosthetics for humans, where there's also too much focus on making elaborate replicas of human arms that are neither pragmatic, nor cost effective https://spectrum.ieee.org/bion... [ieee.org]
Re:Doesn't really make sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
The robots make sense in one some ways, and that is human beings take a lot of space, time to train, lack consistency, are more costly post-pandemic, and so on. However you have to be careful, even something like Flippy isn't good in all situations.
I always viewed automation more like McSwiney's in the Stainless Steel Rat (Harry Harrison) series. Out of sight, nobody sees it, stuff is made quickly and dispensed. Sure, Flippy is kinda cool to watch, but really you have a robot using some equipment partially designed for humans. That is not ideal, but this is only a first step to getting humans away from certain jobs, fryers in particular.
Don't think McDonalds won't jump on this the moment they think it's workable... they were so desperate during the pandemic, and even today, that they have been hiring 15yo kids... and those kids can't run fryers in most (all?) states.
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McDonalds isn't really desperate. Even if they were to pay a living wage, the price of a burger would only go up a quarter or so. They're just doing their best to avoid letting the plebes know that they could be paid fairly for doing their garbage job.
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Of course with the history of McDonald's corporate, they might want to buy a portion of the company and ship a worse version to stores so they can make money on the service calls like their ice cream machines.
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It kinda makes sense if your intention is to replace human labour with a machine, while keeping all, or at least a substantial part, of the other tools.
OK, but does that make sense? It only really makes sense if you're going to have humans there to step in if the machine fails. But if you didn't need the machines to be automated, you wouldn't automate them. It makes more sense to eliminate the humans, and have more machines — especially if you can eliminate the building, and replace it with something cheaper like a kiosk. There's no reason there should be a human in a drive-through coffee operation. If the machines aren't reliable enough that they do
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The money that you may superficially safe on not replacing your other "tools", because you want to keep the "workers" interchangeable with some kind of general purpose automation, is likely quickly to break even with maintenance cost of complex robots, which after that point will cost you more than if you went special purpose automation from the start.
Maybe in the future we'll come up with better general purpose robots,
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Pity we took a turn and decided to have more inefficient pneumatic tires on inefficient tarmac instead of more steel wheels on metal rails. About half of oceanic microplastics are from tire dust...
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There are plenty of coffee machines that will make your coffee drinks. Having a robot arm use all the tools (milk pitcher, etc.) designed for humans doesn't really make sense...
Your comment would make sense if a machine based coffee even remotely approaches the quality of a "real" coffee. This can be done quite trivially for drawing an espresso, but beyond that a large portion of how coffee is prepared is based on technique and handling of tools. This is done by humans in a way that doesn't remotely match what coffee machine currently splutter and spurt into a cup.
Take a look at the videos, they've got this down to the point of drawing latte art in the cup. Sure sounds wanky, but
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There are plenty of coffee machines that will make your coffee drinks. Having a robot arm use all the tools (milk pitcher, etc.) designed for humans doesn't really make sense...
Your comment would make sense if a machine based coffee even remotely approaches the quality of a "real" coffee. This can be done quite trivially for drawing an espresso, but beyond that a large portion of how coffee is prepared is based on technique and handling of tools. This is done by humans in a way that doesn't remotely match what coffee machine currently splutter and spurt into a cup.
Take a look at the videos, they've got this down to the point of drawing latte art in the cup. Sure sounds wanky, but one thing about making latte art is that it can only be done if you have properly textured the milk, something which currently 0% of automatic machines on the market do.
There may be a better way than mimicking the human exactly, but as it stands this robot actually looks like it may produce something that is worth drinking, unlike basically anything from an automated machine.
I think for a lot of people, the whole make the barista dance thing might be just fun for them. Or possibly an expression of their personality.
So I suspect that they will not like this automation at all no matter how good the machines are.
It's like how my SO will not use a self checkout line. She enjoys interacting with people, even me for some odd reason. On the other hand, I never miss a chance to not have to talk to a person.
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I try to avoid the self-check lines, because even though cashiering is a crappy job it's still better than living on the dole.
On the other hand, I'm a huge hypocrite because I go to the Amazon Fresh store down the hill almost any time I need just a couple of things.
Do they serve popcorn? (Score:4, Funny)
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Especially around the graveyard shift.
Let's be honest here, customers are assholes. Twice so when they're drunk.
Can it scribble illegibly on the cups? (Score:2)
Expectation to be served quickly/correctly (Score:5, Insightful)
service was slower
customers craved the connection with the person making their coffee
FFS people just want their food/drink quickly and correctly. They don't care about having a personal connection with some random barista...and the people waiting in line, behind the person trying to have a personal connection...really really don't care. The issue is, this thing is too slow...and people saw it for the novelty gimmick it was. The failure is, the business owner thinking the novelty factor would last. There are a lot better ways to automate the process. Baristas are just burger flippers, that, for some reason, have had a better public image bestowed upon them.
Re:Expectation to be served quickly/correctly (Score:4, Interesting)
Baristas are just burger flippers, that, for some reason, have had a better public image bestowed upon them.
It's very very simple, they are associated with an addiction. Yeah we need food, and yeah it makes you feel better, but not like coffee.
Re:Expectation to be served quickly/correctly (Score:5, Insightful)
FFS people just want their food/drink quickly and correctly. They don't care about having a personal connection with some random barista...
You're not people. You're a person. Don't pretend to speak for other people. There are many people in the world who crave personal connections. Some of us (e.g. myself) that personal connection led to marriage. Not bad (or maybe it is depending on your outlook) for a cheap coffee from a Donut King.
My barista and I now live in Europe where the local supermarket opened dedicated "slow lanes" for checkout, specifically for people who *do* like to talk to people, with the expectation that the person in front of you in that line may be having a friendly check with the checkout-chick. It is a great success, not one I use, but one that is none the less popular with some people.
Go push a button on a machine if you don't like people or are afraid of social interaction. Many people are not like you as a person.
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You're not people. You're a person. Don't pretend to speak for other people. There are many people in the world who crave personal connections. Some of us (e.g. myself) that personal connection led to marriage. Not bad (or maybe it is depending on your outlook) for a cheap coffee from a Donut King.
My barista and I now live in Europe
Hold on! You married your Barista?
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Hold on! You married your Barista?
It does happen. A friend of mine married one of her regulars. I went to the wedding.
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Hold on! You married your Barista?
Yes? Why not? It may surprise you to know that many baristas are not making a career of it and instead just making money along side their other job.
She doesn't make coffee anymore, rather when she finished her masters in mathematics she became a teacher. Funny thing. She never liked the taste of coffee and never drank the stuff.
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Hold on! You married your Barista?
Yes? Why not?
I have no issues with it at all. Probably one of the legitimate ways to meet an SO these days.
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LOL I was just taken back by your surprise.
Also I mentioned that because one of my friends when we first started going out was taken back by it.
"You're dating a barista???!?!"
"She's doing a Masters in mathematics"
"Oh that makes more sense, didn't think you would go for a dummy"
LOL, I never actually took this friend to be the judgemental type.
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LOL I was just taken back by your surprise. Also I mentioned that because one of my friends when we first started going out was taken back by it. "You're dating a barista???!?!" "She's doing a Masters in mathematics" "Oh that makes more sense, didn't think you would go for a dummy"
LOL, I never actually took this friend to be the judgemental type.
Heavens, that is judgmental on their part. I'll probably go to modern hell for noting that near the top of my list is pleasant demeanor. So lack of a degree is not a show stopper.
What I was actually planning, was after you answered my "You married a Barista?" to ask "Who makes coffee in the morning?" And then I saw she doesn't like coffee!. So my lame attempt at setting up a joke failed on every level. 8^)
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I walk into a random Starbucks for coffee most of the time, I just want my coffee, I don't care at all what random person is making it, I am not making any connections with them, even if I remember them I don't care. I want to be handed out my coffee as soon as possible. If machines like this make it faster and cheaper for the coffee shops, then I am all for it. Faster is great, I don't like waiting in lines. Cheaper is great, that's what progress is all about for me - more, better, faster, cheaper.
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service was slower
customers craved the connection with the person making their coffee
FFS people just want their food/drink quickly and correctly. They don't care about having a personal connection with some random barista...and the people waiting in line, behind the person trying to have a personal connection...really really don't care.
People care about getting their money's worth.
And watching the the barista make the coffee is part of what they're purchasing.
And the few seconds of pleasant social interaction when you buy the coffee (not conversation, just politeness), also adds value.
Even the fact they see a human spending time and effort to make the coffee means they incorporate that perceived value into the beverage. Meaning the exact same coffee will taste better if you watched a human make it.
That's the problem with this style of bea
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and have no consideration for those waiting in line behind you.
Found someone who didn't read the fine summary. At the bottom it notes the machine is S.L.O.W.E.R.
[C]ustomers were initially intrigued and excited about the robot barista, but the service was slower than with a human barista. H
So you'd have to buy/rent several of them to be competitive with a human, which kind of throws their estimates of profitability out of whack.
So who fixes "barista bot" ? (Score:2)
Re:So who fixes "barista bot" ? (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of coffee vending machines... (Score:2)
I know I'm dating myself here, but there was a time where there were vending machines which did coffee, hot tea, and hot chocolate. However, because of the issues with having to clean all those nozzles, hoses, and other things, they were tossed for simpler stuff like Keurigs where the path for wet items is relatively short.
These machines remind me exactly of this. Yes, it may have a cool factor, but a machine doing coffee needs to be designed to be easily taken apart and cleaned. Perhaps simple modules t
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Yes, we know you are the old fat guy that sexually harasses all of the baristas and wait staff.
You are the reason why people don't want to work service jobs anymore.
Unsurprising that it's failing (Score:3)
The basic problem they face is this: this is a customer-facing change that makes the customer experience worse for the purpose of solving a company problem (high costs of labour). That might work in a business where the individual customer experience wasn't a crucial part of the offer / competitive landscape (I've seen robots being use to move laundered staff uniforms in the basement of a Dutch hospital, for example) -- but coffee shops / restaurants? Not gonna work till robots arrive that solve a *customer* problem, first and foremost.
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Not gonna work till robots arrive that solve a *customer* problem, first and foremost.
People queue in their cars for shitty coffee now, when they could literally make better for cheaper with a machine at home, and in about the same amount of time they spend getting there and idling to boot. All they really care about is convenience, quality is barely on the list. If you just replaced the drive-through coffee they're using now with a vend-o-mat that gave them the same shitty coffee in the same amount of time for the same price, they would happily line up to poke at buttons and rub their credi
No (Score:1)
One way to end the "tipping culture" (Score:4, Interesting)
Wish only the worst on their endevor (Score:2)
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I saw one of these in Honduras (Score:4, Insightful)
Earlier this year, there was a coffee shop where that was its defining feature: a set of robotic arms that was actually responsible for making the drinks. It would wave and do a few other parlor tricks to onlookers, and the drinks were fine, no real complaints there.
However, the drinks weren't any cheaper than other coffee shops, and it took nearly 30 minutes for our beverages to arrive. By contrast, I've gotten coffee at the Starbucks in New York Penn Station during rush hour. In the 15 minutes I was in Penn, the crew served about three times as many people as the robot in the coffee shop in Honduras. Even if you want to argue "New York runs on different time", the robot gave zero indication that there was a "faster" mode that wasn't being utilize at the time...with nearly every table full, if there was a time to press the turbo button, that was it.
This sort of thing is a tourist attraction worth going to once for the novelty, but for the daily caffeine requirement, it's not replacing even an average Starbucks crew, let alone a team that can handle Penn Station at rush hour.
I don't go to cafés... (Score:3)
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Picnic is not a "robot" (Score:2)
Why? (Score:2)
Why? Why can't the robots just eat at home, like everyone else?
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Why? Why can't the robots just eat at home, like everyone else?
Because if they ate at your home, you would be on their menu. They've either seen or read "To Serve Man ... [wikipedia.org]"
Cost concerns and high employee turnover (Score:3)
Which, of course, have NOTHING to do with paying them crap wages, and screwing with their hours.
And I'm sure those "concerns" have nothing to do with Starbucks unionizing.
So that's a vending machine (Score:1)
Sure, but... (Score:2)