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Robotic woks are the chefs in this Boston restaurant
Four MIT students who once built a soccer ball-kicking robot got together with a Michelin-starred chef to build a restaurant that's not quite what you're used to. How? Well, it's staffed by robots, obviously. Spyce, a fast casual restaurant that has just opened its doors in Boston, has a mecha-kitchen with seven autonomous woks preparing its healthy offerings. A customer simply has to choose one of the bowl-based meals in its menu through a touchscreen kiosk, and the sprouts, kale, beans, grains and other components of the meal will automatically drop into one of the drum-like machines to start cooking.
Panera Bread left millions of customer records exposed on the web
Add another big-name brand to the list of those who've left customer data exposed online. Thanks to security researcher Dylan Houlihan, KrebsOnSecurity has discovered that Panera Bread left millions of customer sign-up records (possibly 37 million) in plain text on its website, including email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers and loyalty account numbers. There was no payment info, thankfully, but it would have been patently easy for evildoers to harvest that information and use it as part of identity fraud or spam campaigns.
Google Maps for iOS now shows restaurant waiting times
Last month Google Maps for iOS got an update that brought users real-time transit and driving information. Today, a further update brings the app to version 4.47 and in line with the Android version, with additional transit details and a helpful restaurants feature that shows the average waiting times of over a million sit-down eateries around the world.
Google sells restaurant review service Zagat
Google bought Zagat in 2011 with hopes of offering definitive restaurant reviews in its search results, but that dream is ending quietly. True to the rumors, Google has sold Zagat to The Infatuation, a restaurant discovery platform. The new owner will keep Zagat as a separate brand and increase its exposure while helping it with a "tech-driven platform" that provides a "more meaningful alternative" to crowdsourced review sites like Yelp. The terms of the deal aren't public, although Google bought Zagat for $151 million.
Barclaycard wants you to dine and dash legally
Barclaycard is testing a new payment service that could mean the end to waiting for your bill at a restaurant. It's called Dine & Dash, but in this version, dashing doesn't mean skipping out on your tab. Instead, with this service, restaurant-goers would download the Dine & Dash app and just tap their phone on the Dine & Dash device at their table once they arrive. They would then order their meals and eat as usual, and once they were done, they could just leave. When the Dine & Dash app registers that the diners have left the restaurant, it will check them out and close the bill, issuing payment from whatever payment option was loaded into the app by the diner.
DoorDash's delivery drivers will take restaurant leftovers to food banks
DoorDash announced a new project today aimed at reducing the amount of food thrown out by restaurants each year. A 2016 report released by the Food Waste Reduction Alliance found that restaurants that took part in its survey donated just two percent of leftover food in 2015 and over 93 percent of it was just thrown away. And restaurateurs consistently say that transportation is the biggest barrier to food donation. That's where Project DASH comes in. Project DASH, or DoorDash Acts for Sustainability and Hunger, is teaming up with Feeding America Charity and will start transporting food between restaurants and local nonprofits that could make use of it.
Starbucks offers AR tours of its lavish Shanghai coffee shop
Starbucks has a long, long tradition of using tech to bring you into its coffee shops, and that will be truer than ever with the latest supersized Reserve Roastery location in Shanghai. The beverage behemoth will use a mobile app to offer guided augmented reality tours of the coffee-making process when the restaurant opens on December 6th. Point your phone at equipment like the roaster or cask and you'll get an explanation of what happens as beans eventually turn into your venti latte.
Postmates' first food deliveries outside the US start in Mexico City
Lyft isn't the only major American online service dipping its toes in foreign waters this week: Postmates is starting its first food deliveries outside of the US with a launch in Mexico City. Hungry people in several districts of Mexico's capital can order from 1,000-plus restaurants with a 35-peso ($1.80) delivery fee and typical delivery times around 35 minutes. To make itself part of the community, it's both donating 10 percent of sales to earthquake recovery through the rest of 2017 and is giving customers 1,000 pesos (about $52) in delivery credit until December 15th.
UberEATS now includes restaurant ratings and recommended dishes
Today, Uber announced a few changes to the UberEATS app aimed at helping users decide on what to eat. First, the company has brought a five-star rating system to the restaurants listed in the app and users can now rate a restaurant they've ordered from as well as give individual dishes a thumbs up or a thumbs down. All of these community ratings are displayed in the app for anyone to see and they'll reflect the previous 90 days' data.
Google shows the waiting times at your favorite restaurants
If weird food trends (cronut, anyone?) have taught us anything it's that people are prepared to wait a long time for a seat at a restaurant, so whether you're visiting a popular local eatery or Time Out's latest gastro-pick, you're faced with two choices. Attempt to beat the crowds by having dinner at 4pm, or rock up whenever and hope the people in the line ahead give up before you do. Now though, in a development we can't believe didn't happen sooner, Google will show you the wait times of nearly a million sit-down restaurants around the world.
New York’s next Shake Shack doesn’t want your cash
Shake Shack is opening a new location later this month in New York City that will play host to a few functional experiments, CNBC reports. The upcoming Astor Place burger joint is going the self-checkout direction and will have digital kiosks rather than staff who take customers' orders.
Airbnb wants to help you book a restaurant reservation, too
Airbnb just added a new feature that allows users to book restaurant reservations directly through its app and website. It's powered by Resy and is currently available in 16 US cities. Airbnb now has a dedicated restaurants tab that lets you search by cuisine, whether you want breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner as well as other options like prix fixe meals and prime seating. The latter lets you pay a little extra to snag a seat at a fully booked spot. You can also search for a place to eat using a map view in order to find a place in a particular location.
You can pay at a restaurant by smiling at a camera
As easy as it is to make purchases in the era of tap-to-pay services, it's about to get easier still. Alipay (which handles purchases for Chinese shopping giant Alibaba) has launched what it says is the first payment system that uses facial recognition to complete the sale. If you visit one of KFC's KPRO restaurants in Hangzhou, China, you can pay for your panini or salad by smiling at a camera-equipped kiosk -- you need to verify the purchase on your phone, but you don't have to punch in digits or bring your phone up to an NFC reader.
Lyft's Taco Bell mode indulges your late-night cravings
So it's midnight, you have an irresistible case of the munchies and your favorite eateries have stopped delivering. Are you going to settle for a bag of chips or (gasp) hold out until the morning? You won't have to, if Lyft has its way. It just introduced a Taco Mode that swings you past a Taco Bell drive-thru between 9PM and 2AM. That's going to be a very, very expensive taco if that's the sole reason for your trip, so you might want to get a Double Decker to justify the excursion. You can use Taco Mode while you're headed somewhere else, though, so this could be helpful if your friends will kill you unless you show up with chalupas in hand.
Recommended Reading: Instagram's influence on restaurants
Instagram Is Pushing Restaurants to Be Kitschy, Colorful and Irresistible to Photographers Casey Newton, The Verge It's no secret that Instagram is full of brunch pics and food porn, but restaurants have noticed the trend. The Verge details how food spots are catering to photo-happy eaters with interior design details, eye-catching spaces and the proper amount of light.
Yelp buys a company that helps you shrink restaurant wait times
Yelp partnered with Nowait last year to let you line up remotely at restaurants and, ideally, skip the physical queue altogether. So how well did it work? Quite well, apparently -- so much so that Yelp is acquiring Nowait outright. The buyout gives Yelp an opportunity to tightly integrate more of Nowait's technology, and should shrink the time it takes to go from finding a place to eat to scoring a table.
On-demand food service delivers beer with your meal
There's no shortage of online food delivery services, and services that deliver alcohol. However, getting both at the same time is a challenge. How are you supposed to complement that burger with a tasty brew? DoorDash has an answer. As of today, customers in southern California (other cities are coming, at least in the US) can order both alcohol and food at the same time, whether the drinks come from a restaurant or a liquor store. Your options will depend on the relevant corporate partnerships, but it could save you the hassle of placing a second order or (gasp) drinking something tamer.
Pepper the robot gets a job at Pizza Hut
SoftBank's Pepper robot has been gainfully employed in the past, but it's apparently ready for a new career in the food industry. Pizza Hut Asia is partnering with MasterCard on a trial that will use Pepper for orders and information in restaurants by the end of 2016. Once you pair your MasterPass account, you can do everything from paying for your meal to asking about the calorie count. It's not necessarily as quick as ordering directly from your phone, but a demo (below) suggests that it's fairly painless -- it's easy to see the humanoid helper taking some of the load off of Pizza Hut's staff. Let's just hope that it fares well in less-than-ideal conditions.
Pizza Hut gives you delivery estimates before you order online
You know the score: you order from an unfamiliar pizza place and have little idea as to when your food will arrive until you've already made a purchase. Wouldn't it be nice if you knew when that pie would show up before you spent your cash? Pizza Hut thinks it can help. It's offering an estimated "Visible Promise Time" that tells you when your online order is likely to reach your door (or, for carry-out, when it's ready) before you commit. The time varies based on the volume of orders, how many drivers are on hand and the typical drive time for your part of town. If you're not sure that ordering at 6PM on a Friday is a wise idea, you'll find out very quickly.
Six amazing underwater buildings
By Cat DiStasio While architecture on land strives ever higher, designers in wetter parts of the world are finding new ways to build beneath the waves. Underwater buildings aren't exactly common -- partly thanks to their enormous expense -- but there are a few stellar examples of submerged structures that demonstrate how a trend like this could really take off. From the world's largest underwater restaurant in the Maldives to a community of luxury floating condos in Dubai that put beachfront property to shame, undersea buildings illustrate what can be done when we fuse technology with architecture.
