autonomous burritos

Extracted Attributes

• Goal

  Significant reduction in labor costs

• Type

  Concept/Vision

• Core Principle

  End-to-end automation in food preparation and delivery

• Broader Context

  AI arms race, scalable computation, autonomous driving

• Primary Proponent

  Travis Kalanick

• Associated Company

  Cloud Kitchens

• Key Technology Example

  Bowl builder robot

Timeline

• The concept of "autonomous burritos" and the "bowl builder" robot was discussed by Travis Kalanick in the context of Cloud Kitchens and the future of food delivery during a panel discussion. (Source: related_documents (All-In Podcast, Episode E169))

  2023-10

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. ( chih-POHT-lay), often known simply as Chipotle, is an American multinational chain of fast casual restaurants specializing in bowls, tacos, and Mission burritos made to order in front of the customer. As of March 31, 2025, Chipotle has nearly 3,800 restaurants. Its name derives from chipotle, the Nahuatl name (from chilpoctli) for a smoked and dried jalapeño chili pepper. Chipotle was one of the first chains of fast casual restaurants. It was founded by Steve Ells on July 13, 1993. Ells was the founder, chairman, and CEO of Chipotle. He was inspired to open the restaurant after visiting taquerias and burrito shops in San Francisco's Mission District while working as a chef. Ells wanted to show customers that fresh ingredients could be used to quickly serve food. Chipotle had 16 restaurants (all in Colorado) when McDonald's Corporation became a major investor in 1998. By the time McDonald's fully divested itself from Chipotle in 2006, the chain had grown to over 500 locations. With more than 2,000 locations, Chipotle had a net income of US$475.6 million and a staff of more than 45,000 employees in 2015. In May 2018, Chipotle announced the relocation of their corporate headquarters to Newport Beach, California, in Southern California, leaving Denver after 25 years.

Web Search Results

• A Robot's Nightmare Is a Burrito Full of Guac - The Atlantic

  Announced on Tuesday, the result of a collaboration between Chipotle and the automation company Hyphen looks like a standard stainless-steel Chipotle counter, burrito components arrayed on top. But inside, just above knee level, is a robotic assembly line that can prepare to-go bowls and salads from start to finish. A video from Chipotle shows a bowl pivoting through the machine, positioning itself below specified ingredients. White rice tumbles in, some grains scattering about. Later, a [...] Chipotle’s bowl-bot isn’t the company’s first somewhat mundane food-prepping invention. Last year, it unveiled Chippy, “an autonomous kitchen assistant that integrates culinary tradition with artificial intelligence to”—wait for it—“make tortilla chips.” In July, the company announced the Autocado, an “avocado processing cobotic prototype” that cuts, cores, and peels avocados, eventually reducing guacamole prep time by 50 percent. The gigantic bowl of machine-prepared avocado flesh then gets [...] Welcome to the future: A robot can now prepare your favorite Chipotle order. Just as long as you don’t want a burrito, taco, or quesadilla. The robot cannot handle those. Your order must be a burrito bowl or a salad, and it must be placed online. Then and only then—and once the robot makes it out of testing at the Chipotle Cultivate Center, in Irvine, California—your queso-covered barbacoa bowl might soon be assembled by the chain’s new “automated digital makeline.”

• Chipotle Launches a Robot to Make Its Burrito Bowls - Food & Wine

  Hyphen and its automated makeline are currently being tested at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, California. In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Garner said the system was still "months away" from being trialed in an actual Chipotle restaurant. This isn't Chipotle's first foray into robotics or automation; it has previously tested another cobot called Autocado, which slices avocados for its guacamole, and Chippy, a robotic arm that has been trained to make tortilla chips. [...] This marks the latest release in the California-based chain's partnership with Hyphen, a startup that designs and builds automated makelines for restaurant kitchens. According to Chipotle, Hyphen (the robot) would be deployed in the second makeline and would be used to assemble burrito bowls or salads that had been ordered digitally through the Chipotle app, Chipotle.com, or a third-party platform. [...] Chipotle’s social media accounts can be on the nose sometimes, with memes about sweater- and spooky- seasons, respectively; with rhetorical graphics about how a burrito would wear its pants; and with an oddly terrifying corncob-human hybrid called “Corn Lad.” But earlier this week, @Chipotle went serious on Instagram, providing a preview of Hyphen, its “collaborative robot” (or cobot), which it said was currently being tested to make burrito bowls and salads beside its fully human coworkers.

• CHIPOTLE TEAMS UP WITH HYPHEN TO BEGIN TESTING NEW ...

  A Chipotle team member rolls a burrito while the automated makeline assembles a bowl. A Chipotle team member rolls a burrito while the automated makeline assembles a bowl. See Chipotle's Hyphen digital makeline in action here: Photos of the Hyphen digital makeline can be accessed here: How It Works [...] tandem, a Chipotle team member can leverage the top makeline to create burritos, tacos, quesadillas, and kid's meals for the same digital order. [...] NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Oct. 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) announced today it is testing an automated digital makeline in collaboration with Hyphen, a foodservice platform designed to help restaurant owners, operators, and budding chefs move their business forward by automating kitchen operations. Bowls and salads are created by an automated system that moves the entrées through the bottom makeline where ingredients for the order are dispensed automatically. In

• Self-Driving Robots: A Revolution in the Local Delivery

  Co-op, a supermarket chain in the UK, is using hundreds of robots to deliver groceries to its customers. Their popular delivery items are bananas, bread, cucumbers, eggs, milk, etc. Big players like Amazon, eBay, and Uber are also using robots for their last-mile deliveries. Uber acquired Postmates X in 2020 and spun it out with the name Serve Robotics after one year to boost autonomous delivery services. With machine learning technologies, these robots are getting smarter and safer. Over 90 [...] percent of the time, robots travel completely autonomous in the dark, heavy rain, and snow using 3-D maps. [...] Like Uber, anyone can download the app and order items for robots to deliver. Customers can choose items, drop a pin to indicate the delivery location, track the robot, get an alert to meet the robot, and pick the items unlocking the item chamber through apps. Robots are mainly involved in delivering goods from supermarkets, grocery stores, restaurants, and medicines from pharmacies in urban settings. Customers can track the location of the robot and the time to reach the destination.

• Self-Driving Robots Food Delivery - Grubhub Onsite

  Grubhub Onsite Logo # Robots ## Self-driving robots Easily manage on-campus food delivery with self-driving robots. ### With robot delivery, you get: Food delivered fast Fresh food delivered to your students fast. Cost-effective Cost-effective solutions based on your campus needs. Contact-free delivery to help keep students safe. More flexibility More flexibility and delivery coverage. ### How it works 1 A student orders on the Grubhub app. 2 [...] Food delivery robots are self-driving machines with food enclosed that use sensors and cameras to accurately deliver food to specific locations on their own. ### How much do delivery robots cost? The pricing of self-driving robots varies based on campus and your desired capabilities of the robots. Get in touch with a member of our team to learn more about pricing and to get an estimate. ### How do food delivery robots work? [...] A student or guest orders on the Grubhub app. The order enters the queue on your existing kitchen display system. You prepare the order and load the robot. When the robot arrives at the drop-off spot, the student uses the Grubhub app to open the robot and get their order. ### How can I add food delivery robots on my campus? Get in touch with a member of our team today who can help create a customized solution for your campus based on your needs.