Do robot kitchens actually work?

Not yet at chain scale: the machines work, but rollouts keep getting cut. Sellers say fully automated by 2030. The tape says otherwise. Sweetgreen once planned robot kitchens in half of 40 new stores a year, now nearly half of 15, with sales falling for 2 years. Circus cut its 2026 revenue forecast by 90% in July and pushed the rollout to 2027. About 340 robot-run restaurants exist worldwide. Wonder's own deck burns $2.7 billion by 2029. Zume's pizza robots already died. The machine works. Running a chain on it is the hard part.