Automation in Restaurants

Partial automation is becoming more ubiquitous in the restaurant industry, and seems to be accelerating in the face of rising payroll costs.

Look to McDonald’s to take the lead

On November 17, 2019, McDonald’s announced it was expanding its digital self-service ordering stations to all of its 14,000 restaurants nationwide. To quote Joe Kaiser Writer, “This kind of automation - which replaces a human employee with technology -is one of the unintended consequences of minimum wage increase.”

However, these ordering stations are not the only technological innovations happening in the restaurant chain. McDonald’s has agreed to acquire Apprente, which uses Artificial Intelligence to understand speech. They have also acquired Dynamic Yield, a company that produces technology that changes drive-thru menus based on the time of day, weather, traffic, and the customer’s order.

Beyond McDonald’s, other machinery is being produced that will revolutionize the restaurant kitchen. San Francisco-based Momentum Machines has created a robotic, hamburger-making machine the company claims can produce 400 high quality burgers in an hour with minimal human supervision.

Automation is rapidly upon us. It is forcing the entire restaurant industry to adapt and change. However, as automation becomes more integrated into restaurant businesses - coupled with the policy of increasing minimum wage - young and inexperienced workers will likely be among the first to experience job cuts in the California workforce.

Ron Schuster

Holzberg & Associates