This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches, and Leigh Anne Zinsmeister spoke about the future of robots and AI in restaurants.
After a few high-profile mistakes, robots and AI are up for discussion in the restaurant industry. Long the darling of the industry for reducing the need for human labor, there have been some recent cases of AI and robots messing up. The team discussed the future of AI and robots in the industry and what these high-profile cases mean.
Also, the team discussed Chipotle’s new concept. Farmesa is opening in a Kitchen United unit in California and is an offshoot of Chipotle. This isn’t Chipotle’s first foray into other concepts and the team discussed what this means and what the future of Farmesa holds.
Finally, the team discussed McDonald’s newest Famous Order meal. The meal, featuring Cardi B and Offset, is the fifth iteration of the brand’s marketing campaign since it relaunched in 2020. The team talked about what this marketing campaign has done for McDonald’s.
This week’s interview is Ray Kees, director of culinary for Krystal. He spoke with Bret Thorn about his heritage, future innovations at Krystal, and sticking to the basics.