Photo: PizzaForno via Thrillist
“For years there’s been buzz about a robot revolution, and it looks like it’s here. PizzaForno Partners Les Tomlin and Will Moyer are leaning into the future and appeasing both the robot overlords and people who like good pizza fast by rolling out fully automated pizza kiosks across North America.
QSR Magazine reported that the pair plans to place 20,000 fully automated PizzaForno kiosks across the country by 2026. That number includes 1,000 kiosks in the United States by the end of 2022, with locations between Southern California, Louisiana, and Florida first.
‘I think North America has been very late to the game on robotic food,’ Tomlin told the outlet. ‘I mean, look at PizzaForna—the technology has been around France for the better part of 10 years. COVID, the labor shortage, people don’t want to spend 10 minutes waiting for anything. All those things add up to super fast, super convenient, super quick serve. That’s where I think everybody’s got to go.’
Customers who step up to a PizzaForno kiosk will be met with a 32-inch touch screen on which they can choose their pizza and how they plan to pay. The machine builds each pizza, and then a robotic arm removes it from the cold section, opens the lid, and puts it into a proprietary convection oven where it bakes. That takes between 90 and 120 seconds. The pizza is then dropped into a slot where customers can reach it. The entire process takes about three minutes. Customers can also take their pizza home cold and cook it themselves…”
— Caitlyn Hitt, Thrillist