[bhouston]

People seem to forget that nearly all frozen meals and frozen pizzas are all robotic made by the many millions per day. Just by very expensive, large and high speed robots.

The innovation is now trying to make robots that are more flexible, smaller and low volume food production while not being super expensive.

[wiremine]

I'm also aware of robots being used in fast food pizza preparation. In some markets the robots are what keep the franchisees profitable.

[sharemywin]

Are you talking about at the distribution centers?

[wiremine]

No, I'm talking about the end franchisees that makes and bakes the pizzas for the consumer.

[oh_sigh]

Which ones specifically? At Dominos, I see people hand tossing dough and setting the ingredients whenever I go into one(not too frequently, don't judge me). I would imagine a group like Dominos would be the first to mechanize considering their scale?

[dominotw]

what about the toppings, sauces ect?

[wiremine]

I can't mention the name due to DNAs, but yes, the robot use cases includes sauce and toppings.

[baldfat]

Applebees could be all cooked by Robots also since all their food is microwaved frozen food. (I tell friends if you can't smell (edit) cooking outside the restaurant they are just a microwave kitchen.)

Fast food could also be run by robots fairly easily. I am imagining in 15 years most places will have robots doing the majority of cooking in restaurants. They won't spread disease, make food consistently, won't call out sick nor require an hourly wage.

[eropple]

When you can't "smell cooking" (as I assume you meant to write), it means their HVAC works, and if you can't "see cooking" (the other reasonable option?), it means they know how to put up a wall. Your friends should be taking you with a grain of salt.

"All their food" at Applebee's is not "microwaved frozen food"; I know plenty of people who got their start as cooks and chefs there. Something like three-quarters is made in-house and you'd have to be blind and unable to feel your tongue to not be able to tell a microwaved steak.

[baldfat]

Looks like Applebee's is actually starting to cook items. I guess public pressure has changed their ways. Good for them. They absolutely were the king of microwaved food in chain sit downs for decades.

Appetizers are all frozen and pre-packaged they just deep fried at almost all chains.

Heck I worked at Ethan Allen Inn in Danbury CT a LONG time ago and all the meals were frozen and prepared in France and shipped over. Easily $75 to $125 per person in the 90s.

Smell outside a restraunt is certainly a true statement. No HVAC (A/C or Heater) is going to filter the kitchen's vent. Tell me you can't smell the difference between Burger King's fake grilling and McDonald when your outside of them? Same thing with restaurants. The one's that microwave a ton will

[michaelvoz]

I just ate at The Modern in NYC the other day. The Modern is a Michelin star restaurant. I didn't smell cooking. Half the dining experience at Michelin restaurants is all about tightly controlling the inflow of stimuli to your senses. No good restaurant would want you to smell someone else's seafood cooking while you start on desert. Is your experience limited solely to to restaurants with poor HVAC?

[baldfat]

I stated specifically outside not inside. You smell cooking from outside since kitchen's are vented. Now in NYC sometimes the vents are on top of a 25 story building and that beautiful NYC post winter stench might cover it up.

If a restaurant has a ton of items on the menu I guarantee you that most of that is just prepared food that is microwaved.

Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants are not cooked.

[eropple]

I don't think people are "mad". But you have a track record of saying trivially disproven, unsubstantiated things on HN and you backtrack poorly from them, then you sprinkle in weirdly fixated antagonism like "NYC post winter stench". It's bad posting, and it's wrong besides--the gap between "they don't cook anything" and "they fry frozen appetizers and cook everything else as anyone else would" is not so small that you can handwave it away with "lol people are mad". I mean, hell, Applebee's has had apply-fire-to-food line cooks for twenty years or more. I knew kids in high school who worked there (and we'd go there because we got a discount).

(And if there's any wind at all, modern roof-mount kitchen venting will ensure you don't smell much of anything if there's even moderate wind.)

[deadmetheny]

>Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants are not cooked.

Or, you know, you're just talking out your ass and it's not even remotely true. A lot of menu items just means there's either a lot of prep being done, a lot of the menu items have a reasonably similar set of bases, or both. There's always going to be a certain degree of Sysco stuff that's just bought and dunked into a fryer, but claiming most of a given menu is reheated from a microwave without any further backup other than "lol you can't smell it" is ridiculous.

[geofft]

> Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants are not cooked.

People should be mad at falsehoods. What better use is the feeling for?

[gamblor956]

Smell outside a restraunt is certainly a true statement. No HVAC (A/C or Heater) is going to filter the kitchen's vent. Tell me you can't smell the difference between Burger King's fake grilling and McDonald when your outside of them? Same thing with restaurants.

That is so false that you must be trolling. I've been to plenty of restaurants where you couldn't smell the food outside the restaurant, even though you could see them cooking the food inside and the air ducts carrying the smoky air from the kitchen to the outside. This ranges from small mom-and-pop taco stops to Michelin-starred restaurants.

On a side note: I've been to both Burger King and McDonalds, and you can smell them cooking the burgers at both. You can't "fake grill" a burger, as microwaving ground beef patties produces a different texture than grilling or pan-grilling.

[gamblor956]

Your statement is technically libelous in nature, as you are accusing a major restaurant chain of not actually cooking any of there food based on spurious factual assumptions.

You may want to consider asking dang to delete your comment.

As a side note, if you walk into an Applebee's you can actually be seated at a table with a view of the kitchen, where you can watch the cooks at work. Applebee's may not be the best cooked food, but it is actually cooked by real live people, and has been for decades.

[thatcat]

To be libelous it would need to be proven false. Some Applebees location has likely at least partially microwaved chicken/steak to ensure that it meets the minimum safe temperature during busy periods before.

[baldfat]

Okay here is a quote:

Applebee's

Also, whenever someone wanted to order a 'medium rare' steak, and I had to say we only make them 'pink' or 'no pink.' That's because most of the kitchen is a row of microwaves. The steaks were cooked on a stove top, but then microwaved to death. Pink or no pink only referred to how microwaved to death you want your meat."

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/food-cocktails/news/a52288/chai...