Mezli, a startup based in San Mateo, Calif., just launched its fully-autonomous robotic restaurant, the first of its kind in the world, according to the company.
The new restaurant – located at Spark Social, a food truck park and beer and sangria garden in the heart of San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood – was founded by a team of Stanford engineers.
As graduate students at Stanford, Mezli’s founders – including Alex Kolchinski, Alex Gruebele and Max Perham – realized they had no nearby food options that were convenient, affordable and healthy.
Putting their technical backgrounds to use, the three entrepreneurial engineers teamed up with Michelin-star chef Eric Minnich to solve the problem with a combination of robotic and culinary innovation.
This Sunday, Aug. 28th, the Mezli co-founders will celebrate the grand opening of their new, robotic concept.
Mezli’s restaurant will be the first-ever to serve a full hot menu to customers without requiring any human intervention. This automated approach allows Mezli to offer its menu of Mediterranean grain bowls, sides and drinks at a significantly lower price point than similar fast-casual restaurants. Its grain bowls start at $6.99, providing a healthy, convenient and affordable dining option for neighborhood residents and workers.
The team started full-time work on Mezli in January of 2021 while participating in the Y Combinator startup accelerator and working out of the KitchenTown food innovation center. During 2021, they opened a pop-up restaurant, built a prototype robot, and brought on a number of employees, advisers and investors – including roboticist Pieter Abbeel, restaurateur Zaid Ayoub, and Charles Bililies of Souvla.
Now, Mezli is launching its first fully-robotic location, which the founders say is the first fully-autonomous restaurant in the world. Previous automated culinary concepts have either achieved partial automation of fresh hot menus (but required human involvement in the process) or achieved full automation of simpler menus (like rehydrated noodle bowls and made-to-order cold salads). Mezli said its restaurant will be the first to autonomously serve customers a fully customizable, made-to-order hot menu, with no human intervention required at all.
Kolchinski noted that Mezli has served a number of customers at soft-launch events thus far. “When people see Mezli for the first time, they've generally either been curious about what Mezli is and how it works, or eager to try it out if they heard about us before stopping by,” he explained. “Customers have been surprisingly comfortable with the ordering and pickup process, and most of the comments we get are on the food itself – thanks to Chef Eric's good work, feedback on the food has been extremely positive – and on the low price point of our menu.”
Kolchinski noted that the only complaints they’ve gotten so far have been from people who wished they got more or less of something – like grains, sauce, etc. – so they’ve adjusted their portion sizes accordingly.
“The fact that people comment on our food, as well as its low price, much more than on our robotics has been gratifying to us,” Kolchinski explained, “because we see our technology less as an attraction in and of itself and more as a tool to serve people great food at a low price.”
Overall, Mezli’s approach is all about unlocking fresh, healthy food at affordable prices by reimagining the nature of food service from the ground up – and their vision is gaining a lot of attention.
“It resonates with me,” said roboticist Abbeel, speaking on the Mezli concept. “Anything physical is always harder than you think, so if you don't come up with a first principles way to solve it, it will be difficult. In addition, from day one, the food was being served and that is compelling.”
Looking ahead, after the upcoming launch at Spark Social, the Mezli team plans to expand to multiple locations while also widening the culinary options available through the Mezli platform. And because robotic Mezli restaurants are smaller and cheaper to build than traditional fast-casual restaurants, they can be deployed in a wider range of locations, at a smaller carbon footprint per location, while serving fresh, healthy meals at a low price point.The Mezli team said it hopes to take the concept nationwide in the near future.
To learn more about Mezli, visit Mezli.com.
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