Greek American Opens First Restaurant Serving Robot-Made Burgers (video)

Start-up company Creator, owned by Greek-American Alex Vardakostas, is opening a burger restaurant in San Francisco where the burgers will be prepared by a robot system.

Creator will be the first restaurant where the chef is a machine and the mastermind behind that is Vardakostas, who studied mechanical engineering at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

In the kitchen, instead of a cooking team, there is a 5-meter robotic system ran by 20 computers, 350 sensors and 50 actuators. The robot can prepare a burger from scratch.

And not just any burger. There are choices like he classic-style Creator vs. The World with a mole Thousand Island special sauce, the oyster aioli Tumami Burger, The Smoky with charred onion jam and the sunflower seed tahini Dad Burger.

According to Crunch Tech website, such burgers would cost $12-$18 at an upscale restaurant. At Creator, however, they only cost $6, with most of the money going to the quality ingredients.

The low price comes from the savings on labor and kitchen space. However, it is humans that serve the food, or take the order.

On top of that, the maker argues that the robot makes a better hamburger than people do because it cuts vegetables more accurately and places the materials more accurately.

In addition, the robot-made burger is, theoretically at least, healthier because if a worker in the kitchen is ill, they might infect customers if, say, they sneeze close to the food or touch it with their hands.

Vardakostas’ background is very close to what he has masterminded. His family owns the California-based A’s Burgers. Being in his parents’ restaurants helping since the age of eight, it came naturally to him to do a variation of his parents’ work, adding lots of technology, and, of course, Greek ingenuity.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=CbL_3le40qc