Why Is It So Hard to Make a Robot Chef?

Business|Why Is It So Hard to Make a Robot Chef?

The robot in the kitchen was upset.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Steve Ells ignored the noise as he expounded on the future of the restaurant industry (hint: robots!) and how his food chain, Kernel, will play a leading role.

Mr. Ells is best known for starting Chipotle, the burrito giant, in the mid-1990s. Now, with Kernel, which has two locations in New York City and a third on the way, “we are reinventing the kitchen job,” he said.

On a warm day in late October, he nibbled on a chicken-salad sandwich that had been partly prepared by a robot that looked as if it might have relatives welding cars at Toyota. The machine was quickly swiveling, extending its arm to remove chicken thighs and carrots from an oven heated to 515 degrees and deposit them on a steel counter where human employees assembled sandwiches and salads before bagging them for customers, also presumably human.

But as the robot continued to beep its displeasure, Mr. Ells stopped speaking, cocked his head and listened carefully as he chewed. “Well, that’s a new sound,” he said, sighing.