McDonald's opens its first fully automated restaurant in Texas

No more waiting to taste your McDonald's menu. The fast food chain opened its first fully automated restaurant. Located at 8540 West Freeway in Fort Worth (Texas), diners can order their menu through the app or large touch screens placed at the entrance of the location.

McDonald's said this on-the-go restaurant concept seeks to streamline the purchasing process for customers who need their order quickly. Home delivery companies will be authorized to pick up orders.

Other automated restaurants

In Kansas City, Missouri, Fritz's Railroad restaurant incorporated a railroad-like structure that transports food from the kitchen to the table. When the robot reaches the place where the diners are seated, it places the order in a small elevator that descends to the table.

A system similar to Fritz's Railroad is employed by the restaurant Baggers, in Nuremberg (Germany). In this case, the robotic structure is more like a roller coaster than train tracks.

In Asian countries such as China, Japan and Thailand, automation is an increasingly common practice whenever a new hospitality business opens.

How do automated restaurants work?

Automated restaurants use robots to carry out the entire process, from taking orders to delivering food and beverages to tables and cooking. They are a booming business model: more and more countries have restaurants with these characteristics.

The purpose of restaurant automation is to facilitate and streamline the core operations of the establishment. The first step in the evolution of the service was the installation of touch screens -called "click and collect kiosks" in marketing terms- to order your food or drink. McDonald's was one of the pioneers in installing this type of service.

Some time later, restaurant automation went from partial to full automation, as in the case of the new McDonald's restaurant in Texas, where the purchasing process depends exclusively on the customer and the robot, without an employee to intervene.

Advantages and disadvantages

Service automation has its pros and cons in all industries, and there are some in the case of restaurants as well. For example, some of the advantages it has is that customers can be more confident that their order has been placed correctly. They even have the ability to correct their mistakes before the kitchen starts preparing the food.

Another is money saving. Robots cost less than human labor. However, the downside of this aspect is that it eliminates jobs.

It is also useful in the food policy aspect. With automation, managers can check inventory, product expiration dates or calculate orders to be placed with wholesalers.

On the other hand, the application of new technologies in restaurants means that problems cannot always be solved immediately. In addition, its use can be unwieldy for certain audiences and dramatically reduces interaction between people.