The founder of Chipotle is out with a new restaurant concept that he hopes will revolutionize the restaurant industry — again.
Kernel is a vegan takeout place where the food is made largely by robots — so it's staffed by only three people.
Why it matters: Kernel aims to redefine quick-serve restaurants for the AI and sustainability age.
"I think this is yet another evolution of what a restaurant can be," Steve Ells, the Chipotle founder, told Axios during a tour of the first Kernel restaurant, which opened Feb. 12 in New York City.
How it works: There's no posted menu — you order online, are told the exact minute to pick up your food (ours took 6 minutes), and use an app to open a locker with your order inside.
Ingredients are prepped off-site at a central kitchen and delivered hourly by e-bike. (The plan is for that to eventually happen with robots and autonomous vehicles.)
Specific orders are then assembled on-site, partly by a robotic system.
Driving the news: Kernel is opening a series of stores around Manhattan this year — and simultaneously showing off its customized robotic technology to other restaurant chains that might want to license it.
"I think there's an opportunity to build Kernel, the restaurant brand," Ells said. "People do love the food — especially the vegetable side dishes."
"But this platform is very, very efficient. And I think the resulting economic model is one people will want to copy — and it's difficult."
Zoom in: Kernel's system includes both off-the-shelf and highly customized robotics.
The centerpiece is a robotic arm with a specially built hand and grip from German manufacturer Kuka.
As orders come in, the Kuka robot loads food into a custom-made induction oven with a serpentine conveyor belt that makes it small and efficient.
The system is meant to minimize the amount of human labor that's required.
"There's a lot of proprietary stuff in it, as you can see," Ells said. "We'll have the opportunity to license it in whole or in part to other restaurants."
Kernel has a main kitchen — staffed with humans — a half-mile from the initial store.
"The hardest part of cooking is the prep, so we've centralized that," Andrew Black, Kernel's chief culinary officer, told Axios.
Fresh ingredients arrive by trailer every hour, and the dirty dishes are scooted away.
"We don't have to hold a lot of inventory" at the customer storefront, said Black, a former sous-chef at Eleven Madison Park, one of Manhattan's top restaurants.
Between the lines: Ells' vision involves hiring fewer workers, but paying them higher wages — and giving them more meaningful work.
Each Kernel will (ideally) require only three workers: a "replenisher" who restocks ingredients, an "assembler" who pulls the foods together and a "bundler" who packs the bags.
Over time, the robots will do even more of the food prep, freeing the humans for more systems monitoring and front-of-the-house work.
"It's really reinventing this 'McJob' that excites me so much," Ells said.
"Because in the industry now, we're seeing 150% annualized turnover in these positions."
With only three workers per restaurant, "you can afford to pay $27 an hour and a paid vacation," Ells said.
The big picture: The restaurant industry is going wild for robotics and automation — not just to save money on labor costs, but also because it's cool and adds consistency and efficiency.
Sweetgreen acquired a robotic kitchen startup called Spyce in 2021 and has used it to open a chain called Infinite Kitchen.
Yes, but: There are still plenty of kinks to work out — as anyone who has seen blooper reels of delivery robots can attest.
At Kernel, an errant potato fell out of a tray last week and forced the shutdown of the production line — oops!
"We didn't know right away to turn off the customer order flow — it was a disaster," Ells recalled with a smile.
A shield was subsequently set up to prevent such accidents — all part of the trial-and-error process, Ells said.
🍔 Dig in: The food was absolutely killer — particularly the plant-based Kernel burger, crunchy cucumbers with cashews and cilantro, and chocolate chip cookies topped with sea salt.
But if you dine in, you have to eat standing up at a narrow counter.
Where it stands: Ells spends his days at the inaugural Kernel store, chatting with customers and helping them troubleshoot any problems — like opening the lockers via an app.
"It's a new experience," he said. "That was true of Chipotle in the early days. There's a learning curve."
Some customers who dropped by Kernel while Axios was visiting were impressed enough with the system to stop and take pictures.
"This is the next big thing, I swear," one customer remarked while picking up his food.
What's next: As AI and robotics improve, Ells envisions taking even more of the labor out of the process of delivering food to the restaurants and prepping orders.
"Eventually, the droid makes its way onto a self-driving vehicle," he said. "This platform is built for that technology we know is coming."