McDonald’s Opens Up its First Fully Automated Restaurant

While there are employees preparing meals in the kitchen, the process eliminates client interaction and aims to improve order speed and efficiency

Imagine you step inside a restaurant and see no staff at all, instead prepared orders are being delivered through a conveyor belt. Sounds crazy right? Well, McDonald has actually opened the world’s first fully automated fast food restaurant in Texas.

First of its kind, the restaurant does not require customers to order through a digital screen or a salesperson, instead the customer has to pre-book their order and receive it through a conveyor belt once it’s ready since the restaurant is designed to be a ‘“grab and go”.

Designed with no seats and containing no non-kitchen staff, the restaurant is built to be super small. A primary reason behind the small size is the intense focus on improving accuracy and order speed.

While claiming to be ‘fully automated’, this Mcdonalds will contain staff that prepares and loads up meals at the conveyor belt. According to the restaurant’s franchisor, Keith Vanecek, this new strategy would allow the restaurant to work at a fast speed thus improving both customer and employee experiences.

As exciting, efficient and fast as the idea may sound, McDonald lovers aren’t really fancying it. People have taken it to Twitter saying that this has converted the once happy McDonald’s into a soulless place. “Food prepared by ghosts, in a ghost town, said another”.

Twitter users also criticized the fact that this isn’t actually an ‘all-automated’ restaurant since there are people cooking the food at the back and even people that load up the food on the conveyor belt.