Illinois Restaurant Employs Robots to Make Salads

At Sweetgreen in the Willis Tower in Chicago the future is already working…making your salad.

Sweetgreen has implemented their “Automated Infinite Kitchen System” which utilizes an assembly line of robots to make salads to order for customers.

Is it just a gimmick? Maybe. It’s also a step toward a time when a company could choose to employ a fleet of bots to make food.

The “Automated Infinite Kitchen System” or AIKS..?....Automated IKS.?? (probably need to work on that name) is presently being used at almost a dozen Sweetgreen restaurants across the country. So, while it is novel, it’s not singular in its usage.

The Chief Concept officer at Sweetgreen Nicolas Jammet points to the advantages of the system in the salads being prepared more precisely, helping to control costs and making food orders from vendors more predictable, which helps the restaurant and the vendor. The more precise application of ingredients also makes for a more consistent product for the returning customer.

Please know that human beings haven’t been erased from the salad equation. Flesh and blood (at least for now) still have to keep the ingredients stocked within the dispensers that the robot chefs use. Humans also take the robot made salad and finish it with details like fresh basil, or fresh squeezed lemon.

Should you choose Sweetgreen at the Willis Tower you still do have the choice of getting your salad made by humans on a line with all the ingredients chosen by you as you go through. This choice is unique from the other Sweetgreen locations that use the "Automated Infinite Kitchen System".

The two systems exist side by side at the Willis Tower location.

Is it just a gimmick? Maybe. But Sweetgreen doesn’t see the robot system as something that doesn’t have legs moving forward.