When Michael Farid, Kale Rogers, Brady Knight and Luke Schlueter founded Spyce — a fast-casual restaurant in Boston, MA — their goal was to serve nutritious meals at an affordable price point: one that college students could actually afford.
Being robotics-obsessed MIT engineering students, they set out to create a new, efficient way of cooking food. The four of them first developed a prototype in their fraternity basement, proving that this was indeed possible.
"Our woks cook by constantly tumbling your food, which provides a really nice and even sear. They're heated with induction and we have temperature control to perfectly cook your meal every time," Luke says of the robotic woks they developed for use in Spyce's kitchen.
"When we had the robotics nailed down, we knew we needed some culinary excellence to really bring this restaurant concept to life," Kale continues.
After guessing his email address correctly (amazing, right?) and reaching out to Chef Daniel Boulud, the team received a response from Daniel himself — who eventually became Culinary Director at Spyce.
"I discovered that the robotic kitchen could bring precision, consistency, taste and also freshness to the preparation," Chef Daniel says. "Spyce was created to be affordable, tasty and nutritious."
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Michael, Kale and Chef Daniel came by our show to demonstrate how their robotic kitchen operates, using a "Showcase Spyce" robot to cook a Massaman Thai Curry Bowl from their restaurant's menu.
The Showcase Spyce does require a little help from Michael and Kale, but in the actual Spyce kitchen, they aren't needed! And once the robots are done cooking, they can also wash and clean up after themselves. (The DREAM.)
Spyce's robotic kitchen churns out made-to-order meals like this one in three minutes or less, starting at just $7.50. The bowls can be customized when you order on the tablet, and there are vegetarian, pescatarian, gluten-free and vegan options. Your name pops up above a wok and you can see the robot in action, cooking your bowl. How cool is that?!
Watch Michael, Kale, Daniel and Showcase Spyce in action in the video above!
