Byline: Inspired by “Meet the Robots Making Your Restaurant Meal” by Kristen Hawley, Food & Wine (Aug 11, 2025)
When most people imagine robots in restaurants, they picture a dining room full of mechanical servers. The reality, as Kristen Hawley captures in her recent Food & Wine feature, is much more grounded. Robots are not replacing hospitality. Instead, they are stepping into the background and taking over the tasks that bog kitchens down or stretch staff too thin.
In kitchens across the country, robots are finding their place in very specific roles. At Chipotle, a machine dubbed the Autocado now preps avocados in around 26 seconds. The task once slowed down the pace of guacamole production, but automation has made it routine. Sweetgreen’s Infinite Kitchen, on the other hand, takes automation a step further, assembling as many as 500 bowls an hour with remarkable consistency. Even outside the four walls, Serve Robotics has its delivery bots navigating busy sidewalks in cities like Los Angeles.
But progress has not been linear. Chili’s quietly retired its robot server trial after the novelty failed to translate into lasting value. Kernel, a New York restaurant built entirely around robotic cooking, shut its doors after just a year. Only about nine percent of operators plan to invest in robotics in 2025, proof that while interest is strong, adoption remains cautious.
What emerges is a nuanced picture: success comes not from flashy experiments, but from targeted deployments where technology truly complements the human side of dining.
Why It Matters for Operators
For restaurant leaders, the lesson is balance. Robotics shines in repetitive, risky, or high-volume tasks where human effort is often wasted or inconsistent. But hospitality remains about people. Dining rooms staffed by robots alone have not resonated with customers, and investment remains selective.
The smartest operators will apply robotics as a scalpel, not a sledgehammer: augmenting staff, protecting them from burnout, and ensuring consistent throughput without sacrificing guest experience.
At RoboOp365, we believe the future of restaurant robotics depends on thoughtful collaboration between operators and technology partners. The most successful outcomes come when use cases are clearly defined and measurable from the start. That might mean targeting repetitive prep tasks that slow down a line, reducing the physical strain of bussing heavy trays, or ensuring consistent throughput during peak demand.
When automation is rolled out in this way, it complements teams instead of competing with them. The result is consistency, reliability, and confidence that the investment is making work more sustainable while protecting the customer experience.
Closing Thought
The restaurant of the future will not run entirely on robots. Instead, machines will handle the grind while people focus on the human side of dining. Hawley’s article reinforces this reality: the most meaningful wins are not in bold experiments but in quiet, precise deployments that strengthen both kitchens and teams.
Source: Meet the Robots Making Your Restaurant Meal — Food & Wine (https://www.foodandwine.com/meet-the-robots-making-your-restaurant-meal-11788347)