
San Francisco’s Newest Fast Food: Healthy, Cheap and Served by Robots - juanplusjuan
http://ww2.kqed.org/futureofyou/2015/08/18/san-franciscos-newest-fast-food-healthy-cheap-and-served-by-robots/
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Animats
_" After you place an order at a kiosk, you pick it up a few minutes later
behind a glass door or “cubby.” The only humans in sight are the concierges,
who can answer questions that you may have about the software, and the dozen
or so staff in the kitchen._"

They've re-invented the Automat, little glass doors and all.[1] The first
Automat opened in 1887, and the last one closed in 1991.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat)

~~~
ihartley
They still exist in the Netherlands:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO)

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serve_yay
They were universally reviled when I visited Amsterdam years ago. I don't
think I even tried.

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WalterGR
As a tourist from the US, I thought that some of the selections were quite
good, and I went back several times. There were always other people there.
This was circa 2005.

Whee anecdotes!

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shostack
Since service workers can no longer afford to live in SF, this seems necessary
at some point.

I say that fully tongue in cheek, but it is an interesting reality to
consider. If the labor market you are dependent on dries up because of housing
and cost of living, and you can't afford to pay more to be competitive, you
either go out of business or automate. This seems like a logical step for an
industry with notoriously thin margins.

The sarcastic side of me wonders if they'll still prompt for a tip...

~~~
dmix
There are many places that are inexpensive along the BART line that can get
downtown SF in 15-20min. This is the true for many expensive cities. SF is not
the first major city to have an extremely expensive core area which the
service workers commute to from surrounding burroughs.

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rayiner
> Eatsa’s team, led by Scott Drummond and Tim Young, are hoping to attract
> health-conscious types with its hearty salads and quinoa bowls stuffed with
> green beans, avocado, and root vegetables. The average meal will set you
> back about 500 calories, which is far lower than most fast food
> alternatives.

That's just about the number of calories in a big mac. Or a bojangles canjun
biscuit. Or a chik-fil-a fried chicken sandwich.

~~~
jdmichal
I don't think the general populace realizes that fast food burgers, in
general, are not really all that bad. I mean, maybe the fat vs other stuff is
not quite as balanced as some would like, though I'd like to point out the
French paradox here. [0]

The fries and carbonated sugar water and other accoutrement are where things
_really_ go bad.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_paradox)

~~~
hkmurakami
Don't forget the very large portions offered at many of these fast food
outlets.

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bpodgursky
Seems like they're pointlessly limiting their market. No people, fine, but why
make it vegetarian? They already have to overcome one barrier to get people in
the door.

~~~
Mikeb85
Vegetarian food is easier, logistically. There's a lot of food handling
precautions you take with raw meat and fish that doesn't apply to raw
vegetables... Cook times are also shorter, and as everything can be served raw
or cooked, food safety is more or less a non-issue.

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tcdent
_"...in fact, the price of a burrito bowl and quinoa bowl are roughly
equitable at just under $7, although the latter contains about half the
calories"_

They demonstrate the same oversimplification of food health included in every
fast food chain's marketing. It's literally ironic that a lower calorie count
is considered 'healthy'.

Low calorie food will help you lose weight. If you are not overweight, you
should not be limiting your caloric intake.

Healthy food is rich with a variety of nutrients, low in harmful components
and _high in calories_.

~~~
abandonliberty
Many reasons why the marketing is like this: * The public is confused with low
calorie vs healthy * The public hasn't caught on to cheap sources of healthy
calories (ie, healthy fats and whole grains) [1] * The other types of healthy
calories cost more * This enables businesses to charge more for smaller
portions!

Hilarious example: There are tons of fake healthy 'wheat' breads. Multigrain,
Farmers, Rustic, Subway wheat. None of them are anywhere near whole grain.
These fake-healthy foods have been tricking people for years.

[1] [http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-
eating-p...](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-
plate/)

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cag_ii
Zero mention of robots in the article... disappointed.

~~~
cookingrobot
There are no robots here.

~~~
DonHopkins
Here is a robot:

[http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Servitude.mpg](http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Servitude.mpg)

And another one:

[http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Empathy.mpg](http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Empathy.mpg)

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Goladus
> But what’s unique about Eatsa is the focus on health and taste.

What's so unique about that? Restaurants have focused on taste since there
have been restaurants and have focused on health since there's been demand for
it (last few decades). I had an avocado-kale-lemon smoothie this morning from
a new place that just opened up in my neighborhood...

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swalsh
This has a brilliant scaling strategy. If McDonalds decides to one day replace
half it's workers with terminals, people will almost certainly see it, and it
may impact sales. However here, with the food out of sight they can
incrementally swap people for machines, and it'll only affect business if
quality dips below acceptable limits.

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alrs
"Healthy" if you're still using 1990s health guidelines. I've got no need for
carbohydrate-filled root vegetables, couscous, or quinoa in my diet.

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zw123456
This is seems inevitable, we have seem something similar with bank tellers
being partially replaced by ATM's and grocery clerks partially replaced by
self serve, we are probably going to see something similar for fast food first
but eventually in more and more restaurants. You know the old adage, if your
job could be done by a robot eventually it will be.

~~~
Eridrus
"At the dawn of the self-service banking age in 1985, for example, the United
States had 60,000 automated teller machines and 485,000 bank tellers. In 2002,
the United States had 352,000 ATMs—and 527,000 bank tellers."

\-
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/06/te...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/06/technology-
and-unemployment)

It hasn't kept track of population growth, so the % has gone down, but only by
about 10%.

So bank tellers don't seem like a particularly good example.

~~~
zw123456
Interesting, I was not aware of that, but it just seems like there would be a
lot more bank tellers if not for ATM's. It may not be a good example,
although, on the other hand, it might be prescient in that food service
workers will probably not ever be completely replaced perhaps for the same
reason bank tellers haven't, there is a segment of the population who wants to
be served by a human whether at a restaurant or at a bank. It might end up
being a similar percent mix in the end ?

~~~
Eridrus
> it just seems like there would be a lot more bank tellers if not for ATM's

Depends on how you look at it. If you believe that ATMs were instrumental to
the growing of retail banking to the otherwise underbanked (lower cost of
providing a service), then without it you wouldn't really have more bank
tellers, you'd just have more unbanked people.

The full article has some more details. But these machines are still making
very simple foods and most people (ignoring soylent fans) enjoy variety in
their food, so it seems like it will be quite a while before robots will take
over large parts of the restaurant/take-out market.

~~~
zw123456
I agree, it seems like the better fit for this type of technology would be
McDonalds type fast food, not health food. It probably works in downtown SF,
but in mainstreet USA, not so much. ATM's are used for simple transactions
like getting cash, maybe the parallel in fast food is getting a big mac, fine
to get it from a machine if it keeps the price down, but for a sit down meal I
would like to see a wait person serve me.

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Mz
_a meal is slightly cheaper than Chipotle, which may appeal to cash-strapped
people who work in the area (in fact_

Little known fact: You can get a great meal for under $6 at Chipotle. You just
have to know how to order. I often wish I knew how to make money off
information of this sort. Alas, that escapes me. :-/

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NovaS1X
I came hoping to see robots making food; I left disappointed seeing no robots
at all.

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dmitrygr
The flip side of demanding $15/hr -> robots become the cheaper option

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imaginenore
> _and the dozen or so staff in the kitchen._

That's already way more than an average McDonalds.

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amalag
If it means the money which went to servers goes to cooks and ingredients it
makes sense

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ilaksh
Wow Monsanto opened a whole restaurant just to advertise quinoa.

