The store itself catches the eye, a gleaming blue metal and glass box, the size of a small shopping container; they can now be caught in four locations across Greater LA, including one at LAX’s buzzy new transit hub.

But how does VenHub work as a machine, and more importantly, as a business? We kicked the tires on this contraption, and then chatted with company CEO Shahan Ohanessian.

Once you want to order something — whether it’s a bottle of iced tea or a box of Pop-Tarts — you need to first download the VenHub app, (currently languishing with 2.5 stars in the Google Play store) an annoying piece of friction that might deter your average 7-Eleven shopper.

Once you checkout, the machinery springs to life, grabbing your order and then placing it on a dedicated bay, which each shopper can then open by scanning a final QR code. (Note to VenHub: consider making these deep links, so they can have more useful behavior for potential customers.) While VenHub wouldn’t speak to their hardware choices, brand names like Universal Robotics, Vention and Robotiq are clearly visible to passersby.

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All in all, the process worked, popping out a cold drink in just a few minutes. While you could likely beat that time in a human-powered c-store, VenHub aims to serve areas that don’t have the foot traffic to support a traditional store on a 24/7 basis.

But that begs a bigger question… why not just use a traditional vending machine? At least at this North Hollywood location, there were no items in stock that couldn’t fit in those familiar form factors, not to mention larger format machines that retailers like CVS have been experimenting with for the past decade. While the robotic arms may catch the eyes of passersby, or of those drawn to the company’s crowdfunding campaign, the jury’s still out on if the added cost and complexity makes sense in the long run.

We caught up with VenHub’s CEO to get his additional insights.

Ottomate News: How were the initial locations selected?

Shahan Ohanessian: The initial VenHub Smart Store locations were chosen based on a combination of high foot traffic, proximity to residential and commuter zones, visibility, and ease of permitting. Our team also considered power access, security, and demographic data to ensure optimal performance for early rollout success.

What can you share about the technology inside the VenHubs?

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Food Republic launches in Vancouver

1,000 miles north, another food robot is making waves as well. Food Republic - a digital food hall - is set to open on April 17th. Featuring multiple brands like Wow Bao, Chicken & Co., One Spot, and Rad Salad, the restaurant concept puts mixing and matching, plus digital ordering, at the front and center. But things get more intriguing come this summer, when the space debuts a Cibotica salad and bowl making bot. “We wanted to be a model to showcase this new model of running a business" said Co-Founder Ashkan Mirnabavi, whose company NextGen Kitchens is behind both concepts.

It looks like Basil Street Pizza, which makes an automated pizza vending machine, is shutting down. I emailed Basil Street Co-Founder and CEO Deglin Kenealy this morning and received the following auto-reply:

Thanks for your message. Basil Street Cafe is currently seeking qualified individuals or groups interested in acquiring company assets. If you are interested in purchasing assets of the company, please contact it’s Chief Restructuring Officer, Jeff Klemp…

The company’s crowdfunding campaign page on SeedInvest, where it was looking to raise $20 million, is also no longer active, and if you Google “Basil Street Pizza,” the results say “Temporarily Closed.” Basil Street had raised $10 million in traditional funding in March 2020. Basil Street had also partnered with Prepango to place pizza vending machines in airports.

UPDATE: I spoke with Jeff Klemp, Chief Restructuring Officer (former COO) of Basil Street.

Basil Street currently has 12 revenue generating units in the field including at airports, military bases and hospitals.

There were two main factors that forced the closure of the company. First, COVID delayed component manufacturing out of China by eight months. Second, getting through regulatory compliance issues around crowdfunding took longer than anticipated and the company basically lost a year of investment. The combination of those factors ended Basil Street’s runway and the board decided to shift operations to an asset sale.

If you are looking to buy a pizza vending machine company, you can email Klemp directly at jeff@eatbasilstreet.com.

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Just a quick update here to a story we ran last week about Yo-Kai Express’ new machine that opened up at Haneda Airport in Japan.

When we originally ran the story, we noticed that the Yo-Kai at Haneda looked a little different from the company’s machines here in the U.S.

Our eyes weren’t deceving us, the machine is different. We reached out to Yo-Kai CEO Andy Lin for more details and he followed up with a note over the weekend. Basically the new machine is specially designed to meet Japanese regulation. The electrical and food contact material tests are all different in that country.

Additionally, there is a space limitation in Japan, so the machine is smaller (Looks like there is just one delivery bay instead of two). But, Lin said, the machine is smart and will automatically recognize products instead of needing a staffer to scan the product in.

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OK. Before I begin, I understand that I already drafted off the back of a different Wall Street Journal piece over the weekend. And the theme for this post follows the same formula: The WSJ writes about a food/restaurant related problem, I write how robots could help. I promise to not make a habit of this.

Having said that, The WSJ posted a story yesterday by Rachel Wolfe with the headline “The Price of a Lunch Salad Went Berserk While You Were Working From Home.” In it, Wolfe writes about the sticker shock office workers are getting when grabbing lunch at work. From that article (subscription required):

Payments company Square calculated that the prices of standard lunch items within major cities, including San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, are skyrocketing. The average price of wraps is up 18% since last March, sandwiches are up 14%, salads have gone up 11% and burgers are costing an average of 8% more as of March 1, according to the company.   

Reasons for this “berserk” pricing include increased labor costs and higher prices for ingredients. Given that higher prices are happening in just about every sector around the country, shelling out a few extra bucks for that vegan wrap shouldn’t come as too much a surprise. But after roughly two years of working from home and grabbing stuff from your fridge “for free,” paying exorbitant sums for meals is one more reason for people to work remotely.

Thankfully, this is where the robots come in.

For companies looking to lure workers back into the office, there are a number of automated food solutions coming to market and they all provide a number of benefits including:

• Small footprints - They can be set up just about anywhere in an office building.

• No build outs - These machines are standalone, so there is no need to build out cafeteria or staff it. Additionally, there aren’t the same logistics as getting meals catered.

• Variety - Many of these options serve both hot and cold food, so they can serve breakfast lunch and dinner, and often meals can be customized to the user’s liking.

• 24/7 Service - Because they are unattended, these robots run all day and some can even serve different daypart meals like breakfast, lunch and dinner.

• Lower cost lunches for the employee - Employers setting up these machines can choose to subsidize them as much as they like, so employees can buy food at a discount.

Smart Fridges

These are pretty much what they sound like, unattended fridges where workers can grab what they want and get charged automatically. Companies in the space include Byte Technology and Frâiche.

Smart Vending Machines

These are not the boring old vending machines of our youth. Vending machines are increasingly sophisticated, serving a variety of fresh meals (both hot and cold) and drinks. For our purposes here, I’m defining smart vending machines as kiosks that serve one type of food (pizza, coffee, etc.). There are honestly too many to mention in this article, so you should check out OttOmate’s Vending Kiosk section for a complete picture of the space.

Restaurants-in-a-Box

These are the latest entrant in the automated food space, but promise to upend office eating. Restaurants-in-a-box are self-contained and offer a variety of menu items and allow for customization. A number of players are coming to the market that make grain bowls, Asian cuisine, pasta, and more. Check out the OttOmate Guide to Standalone Autonomous Restaurants for a full list.

To be clear — I want local restaurants to survive! For a lot of downtown eateries, that means relying on office workers. If they need to ratchet up the price to stay in business, they should do it. And for those that can’t afford or don’t want to eat out every day, food robots like these could be a cost effective answer.

As a remote worker (and the only employee), grabbing lunch with co-workers is something I miss most about office life. After two years of seclusion and remote working, I imagine a lot of other office workers feel the same. Being able to get lunch and just be together in the same place can make all the difference on a dreary work day. If companies can step in and make those lunches more affordable, that’s a win-win for the workplace.

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OttOmate

The OttOmate Guide to Standalone Autonomous Restaurants

So… what do we call this market guide? I wish I had something snappier than “Standalone Autonomous Restaurants,” which sounds so sterile. But that’s what these machines are. They are literal automated restaurants that are self-contained and stuffed inside literal boxes…

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4 years ago · Christopher Albrecht

OttOmate

The OttOmate Guide to All the Robot Pizza Companies

Is there anything better than pizza? (Answer: Nope.) But for restaurants facing labor shortages and ingredient cost increases, the one thing that might make their pizza better is robots. Robots have the potential to bring a number of industry-changing benefits to the pizza world. Robots can work around the clock, they c…

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5 years ago · Christopher Albrecht

OttOmate

A Global List of Robot Baristas for National and International Coffee Day

Today is National Coffee Day here in the US, and Friday is International Coffee Day, for all you international readers! We love coffee here at OttOmate. Well, technically, we love robotic coffee kiosks. The futuristic automated baristas-in-a-box will pour you the perfect cup o’ joe every time…

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5 years ago · Christopher Albrecht

The News

• Yo-Kai Express, which makes a hot ramen dispensing vending machine, is now installed at Japan’s Haneda Airport outside of Tokyo.

• The Yo-Kai is located on the first floor of Terminal 2 with meals costing 790 yen (~$6.55 USD at today’s exchange rate)

• The move further illustrates the importance of airports as a target location for smart vending machine startups.

The Story

We’ve known since last fall that Yo-Kai was going to open up one of its ramen vending machines at Haneda — and now that time has finally arrived. Travelers at Haneda can now enjoy a hot bowl of (delicious) ramen 24 hours a day if they visit the first floor of Terminal 2.

Airports are a key location for smart vending kiosks like Yo-Kai’s. Airports are filled with lots of people who want food quickly — the perfect scenario for a robot. Airports are also a deep part of Yo-Kai’s DNA.

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There are plenty of smart vending machines that will sell you pizza. And there are quite a few restaurants-in-a-box that will make you bowl foods. But RoboBurger is the first self-contained kiosk we’ve seen that will grill you up a burger.

RoboBurger is different from Flippy (which doesn’t really grill burgers much any more), and the (delicious) burger making robot at the center of Creator in the Bay Area. RoboBurger stands alone because, well, it’s a standalone kiosk that cooks burgers (not reheating!) on-demand on the spot. No restaurant needed.

Given that Americans eat roughly 50 billion burgers a year, RoboBurger seems to be debuting the right technology at the right time, as today it installed the first of its next-generation machines for the public.

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The News

• U.K.-based EBar rolled out a new version of its automated beer pouring kiosk last week.

• The new units feature a number of cosmetic and performance upgrades.

• The company is planning its next round of funding to meet demand its says its been getting from the U.S. and elsewhere around the globe.

The Story

I’ve been pretty blunt about how much I like the concept behind EBar. The company makes smart vending machines that pour pints of beer. That’s it. An EBar can pump out 300 pints in an hour and is meant for big events like soccer games, music festivals, etc.

Even better for the venue, EBar’s biz model is “beer as a service,” so machines roll into an event, pour beer and leave. EBar makes its money by taking a cut of revenues so there’s no upfront cost for the venue.

Now EBar has rolled out a new model of its machine, and is eyeing international expansion.

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So when Wavemaker Labs invited me to their Los Angeles headquarters to see a Piestro for myself and taste the pizza it made — I hopped on a flight down.

In the video above you can see the 800° Go version of the Piestro, which is currently engineered to make pizzas to 800°’s specifications (dough, toppings, etc.). And, perhaps more pertinent, the version of the robot in the video is also being retired. The next Piestro will be narrower and the cubbies will move to the side instead of the front (so people waiting for their pizzas don’t block the window where passers-by can see the robot in action). The next iteration of Piestro will also be faster. Piestro CEO Massimo Noja De Marco said this version is slower because everything is being recorded to help make improvements to the final robot.

Piestro has got a busy year ahead of itself. In addition to launching pizza robots with 800° and for Carbone Restaurant Group, Piestro is running two crowdfunding campaigns, one as a joint venture with 800° to raise $10 million and another one to raise $20 million just for itself. De Marco told me that their current timeline calls for five Piestro machines to reach their partners by September of this year (it was supposed to be May, but global supply problems caused a delay). Those five machines will go through some testing and refinement for a couple of months. De Marco said that by January of 2023 Piestro should be firing up production and moving towards scale.

But all the scale in the world doesn’t matter if the pizza is no good. Thankfully, I can report that to my tastebuds, the 800° Piestro pizza is delicious. I tried the margharita pizza and it was excellent. The dough is springy, the sauce was excellent and the crust had a nice char without tasting burnt.

In the video above, De Marco demoed the Piestro, so you can see its literal machinations. From saucing to topping to slicing to boxing, the Piestro does it all in a compact footprint.

I’m just sorry that after enjoying this video, you don’t get to enjoy the pizza.

If you want to understand all the key players in pizza automation, you should check out the OttOmate Market Guide to Pizza Robots! And video from our Pizza Automation Summit last year.

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The News

• Grocery store chain Aldi today announced the launch of Pizzabot, a robotic pizza making vending machine, at its Aldi Corner Store in North Sydney Australia.

• Aldi collaborated with Australian company Placer Robotics on the Pizzabot, which can cook 450 pizzas a day (17 pizzas per hour), offering Pepperoni and Italiana pizzas starting at $8.99 AUSD (~$6.49 USD as of today).

• In addition to other digital payments, Placer says you will soon be able to pay for pizza with the “Pizzabot” cryptocurrency.

If you want to understand all the key players in pizza automation, you should check out the OttOmate Market Guide to Pizza Robots! And video from our Pizza Automation Summit last year.

The Story

Grocery has always been among the most interesting use cases for food robotics. As grocery stores have offered more hot and prepared takeout food, the line between restaurant and retailer has blurred. Smart vending machines like the Pizzabot will expand and accelerate that trend for grocery stores of any size.

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Welcome to the first OttOmate Quick Bite — a small, snackable story for you to consume real quick before the weekend begins.

Today’s Quick Bite is about cups. More specifically, disposable cups, which, as The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, are in short supply. From that article (sub. required):

Restaurateurs and suppliers around the country face the same empty cupboard. Disposable cups imported from China and elsewhere are stuck in ports along the mucked-up supply chain. American paper mills are short workers. And the U.S. hasn’t caught up from the extreme cold snap in Texas last year that suspended production of resins used to make plastic cups and the coating on paper cups.

If that weren’t enough, The WSJ says there’s also a lid shortage.

All of this got me thinking about mia&noa, a swiss startup that makes a robot barista. The hook with mia&noa is that they make you bring your own cup (or thermos, or whatever vessel you prefer). As I wrote back in September:

At first blush, the idea of making people bring their own cup seems like a huge barrier to getting customers. Robot baristas are meant for convenience in high-traffic areas like airports and hospitals. Walk up to the machine, get your cup of coffee, and go. I don’t know about you, but I typically don’t (and don’t want to) bring a mug as a carry-on when I fly.

But there is a method to mia&noa’s “madness.” Instead of setting up at transient high-traffic locations — where people are just passing through to somewhere else — mia&noa is installing machines at locations where the same people return to every day. Think: office buildings, university libraries, and even specific transit hubs like commuter train stations. In these scenarios, it’s totally reasonable to assume people would bring their own mug (or have access to a set of mugs, like in an office).

Mia&noa’s no-cup-for-you! approach also seems smart now in light of the cup shortage. To be sure, I don’t think the current cup crisis will spark a wave of mia&noa installations around the globe. Supply chain issues will be worked out at some point. But it shows how mia&noa’s goal of making the world a better place has helped it withstand a global supply problem.

The News

• Yo-Kai Express provided a first-look yesterday of Yatai, the company’s self-driving, mobile hot ramen vending machine. Yo-Kai posted a video on TikTok and company CEO Andy Lin posted some very light details on Linkedin.

• The Yatai was initially supposed to arrive in North America last November, but apparently was pushed to now. It is debuting as part of Microsoft’s Innovation Summit.

• Lin said the Yatai will officially premiere at a Super Bowl pre-party in LA on Feb. 12.

The Story

The Yatai could mark an evolutionary step not just in vending machines, but mobile commerce overall.

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The News

• Piestro, which is developing a robotic pizza kiosk, has launched its third equity crowdfunding campaign.

• Piestro had raised $5 million in previous crowdfunding efforts, and aims to raise $20 million with this latest campaign.

• Piestro also has a joint venture with the 800 Degrees pizza chain dubbed 800° GO, which is looking to raise $10 million.

The Story

I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Robotic pizza vending machine company Piestro is once again eschewing traditional venture capital and launching its third equity crowdfunding campaign. Piestro CEO Massimo Noja De Marco posted about the new fundraise on Linkedin today.

It’s not surprising to see De Marco and Co. head back to crowdfunding — he’s a big proponent of the funding mechanism, and Piestro is a Wavemaker Labs company, all of which do crowdfunding. The wrinkle is how this will intersect with Piestro’s other crowdfunding campaign, also happening right now.

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The News

• Blendid launched its latest Jamba-branded smoothie robot at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Georgia earlier this week.

• This smoothie-bot installation was done through a partnership with Sodexo, the first such partnership between the foodservice giant and Blendid. The Georgia College location also marks the first Blendid installation outside the state of California.

• Blendid’s move reinforces the important role colleges and universities will play in the roll out of innovative and cutting-edge food robotics.

The Story

While this is the first Blendid college location via Sodexo, this is actually the third university intallation for Blendid’s smoothie robots. Like airports, colleges and universities will be among the first locations to get the latest in food robotics and automation.

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The News

• Cafe X opened a second coffee robot at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) over this past weekend. The new location is in Terminal 1 near gate B20.

• A lot of industry watchers went bearish on Cafe X after it shuttered its downtwon San Francisco stores and laid off folks, but the company has proven to be resilient — even through a global pandemic, which forced the temporary closure of its first SFO robot.

• Because they operate unattended around the clock, food robots and smart vending kiosks are going to be a huge perk offered by airports. Check out OttOmate’s recent interview with Cafe X CEO Henry Hu (see below) about what it takes to operate at airports (including the occasional 3 a.m. wake up to re-stock the machine).

The Story

Early morning passengers flying into or out of SFO Airport rejoice! No matter how weary you are, or how hard the flight may have been, you’ll have at least two places to grab a cup of coffee before the sun comes up, courtesy of Cafe X. The robot barista startup posted to Twitter over the weekend that it opened up a second coffee robot, located at Terminal 1, near gate B20. Huzzah!

Not only is this good news for travelers, but it also shows how reslient Cafe X is proving to be.

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The News

• Hestia Robotics released the latest model of its Coffee Robot K2 earlier this month. In addition to making a variety of coffee drinks, the robot prints customizable latte art on foam and uses AR glasses with remote support to help with maintenance and troubleshooting.

• The robot’s software offers white label iOS an Android apps.

• Based in Zhuhai City, China, Hestia Robotics is spun out of research developed at Fudan University in Zhuhai. The company says it has bartender and bubble tea robots in development as well.

The Story

Given that coffee is the most commonly consumed beverage in the world, it’s no wonder there are so many companies building their own barista bots around the globe. We can now add Hestia Robotics to that growing list with its appropriately named Coffee Robot K2.

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The News

• Seattle-based Blue Hill Coffee has changed its name to Artly.

• The company has expanded beyond its initial Portland installations into San Francisco, where it has deployed three robots.

• Artly’s computer vision+artificial intelligence (AI) system can train the robot to mimic human barista movements, as well as better understand its environment.

The Story

Blue Hill Coffee is changing its name before you probably even got to know them (unless you are an OttOmate subscriber and saw the startup in our robot barista roundup). The Blue Hill moniker is no more, with the company now going by Artly.

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The News

Last week ROBOjuice gave the world a sneak peek at its forthcoming smoothie-making robot … but it didn’t offer up a ton of detail. Thankfully, ROBOjuice Co-Founder and CEO Yevgeny Senkevich followed up with us to share some new information about its robot that gives us a better picture at what’s ahead for the company.

First off, the robot showed off in that demo video is a month old. ROBOjuice’s current current version offers up five types of liquid ingredients (up from just one), two dry ingredients (also up from just one), and more fruit and veggie dispensers will be added (there are just two now).

ROBOjuice plans on installing its first machine at a to-be announced location in the Bay Area “early next year,” according to Senkevich. As it comes to market, the company is also changing up its business model to become more of a B2B2C licensor that works with established F&B brands — a la Blendid and Jamba’s robot-powered smoothies. Senkevich did not disclose if ROBOjuice has signed on any partners yet.

Why This Matters

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The News

The new year will bring a new robot barista to the U.S., courtesy of Robojo. The company is the exclusive distributor of Germany’s MyAppCafe automated coffee kiosk, and plans to install its first machine stateside on January 16th.

The MyAppCafe machine is an 11 ft. wide by 7 ft. deep standalone kiosk capable of 250 different drink/tea combinations (including iced drinks), can make four drinks simultaneiously, and can pump out 100 drinks per hour.

Robojo is bringing the MyAppCafe to market through straight purchase/leasing deals with big institutions like universities or military bases, and is not looking to franchise out its own brand at this time. Robojo declined to say who it’s first installation is with, and did not disclose pricing.

While there are a lot of robotic baristas coming to market, Robojo is looking to set itself apart from the competition with one key feature — customized, on-demand foam printing.

Why This Matters

While there are other robot baristas like Know’s InBot that promise to pretty up your drink with latte art, Robojo is taking this whole concept to a new level by allowing you to customize your latte with your face.

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Before we begin, you should know that there are actually two different Dax robots on the market right now. The Daxbot based in Oregon is a sidewalk delivery robot. And halfway round the world from there, over in Spain, DAX Robotics is building food and drink robots for the HORECA sector. (FWIW, I was today years old when I learned HORECA stands for HOtels, REstaurants, CAfeterias. I feel a little embarrassed I didn’t already know the shorthand, but evidently it’s more prevalent in Europe).

After seeing a video of DAX’s XBEER robot pouring out pint of Heineken, I wanted to learn more about the startup, so I reached out to Aaron Rojas, CEO of DAX Robotics. He was busy traveling to Dubai for business (see below), but was able to answer a few questions about his startup via email.

Following is my Q&A with Rojas, lightly edited for clarity.

What does DAX Robotics do in the food/drink robot space? 

We create robotics and automation applications for the horeca sector. We have developed robotic solutions to serve and prepare drinks and meals. This past summer we presented what we call robotic vending kiosk together with Heineken and the British theme park chain Aspro parks.

We are currently working hard on the research and development of plug and play robotic solutions for kitchens and other areas. Our goal is to create easy to install solutions for customers, where they can receive the product, turn it on and put it to work. 

What can you tell me about the XBEER? (How big is it, how many beers does it serve, how many beers per hour does it pour? What is the business model?)

Xbeer has been developed thinking mainly in places where there are high workloads at specific times. We thought of nightlife, crowded events, or places like resorts or theme parks...

We realised that a lot of time is wasted waiting for glasses to be filled under the tap, sometimes it is desperate, and certainly sales are lost by focusing staff on acting like machines. We believe that staff should be connecting with the customer rather than wasting their time performing such simple and repetitive tasks. 

Xbeer is ready to be placed next to the tap, switched on and works 24 hours a day. It is completely adaptable to any tap already installed, so it does not require structural modifications, the customer or the waiter only has to place the glasses they want to fill in our tray and the robot will take care of it. 

The size is very compact and mobile, it weighs only 10 kilos and can serve up to 6 beers in one round, if we have more taps it can fill them two by two to speed up the service even more.

We are working on the new development X-DRINKS, where this same robot will be able to serve not only beer, but also any other drinks. In addition, to benefit from this, the customer will only have to make a simple software update to his XBEER. 

What can you tell me about the XCHEFF? (What types of food does it make? What is the target market? What is the business model?)

Well, X-CHEFF is the cooking version of X-BEER. 

Initially, we developed it to work in kitchens that were already installed, but we realised that it is very complicated structurally, every kitchen is very different. 

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