OPERATIONS
Automated beverage solutions emerge as top labor relief trend for restaurants From a robot barista to a smart drink dispenser, high-tech beverage solutions were trending at the National Restaurant Association Show
drinks in an hour.” The solution is expected to be released to the general restaurant industry next year. ZenBlen’s smart smoothie kiosks ZenBlen looks a lot like the pizza vending machines that have been popular at restaurant equipment and technology shows in recent years, but instead of heating up pizza, the kiosk is able to pump out smoothies in up to six flavors. The technology is customizable – with operators able to add options like additional proteins, toppings, or mix- ins. The actual process of creating the smoothie takes about three minutes. Currently, the modular design fits in well with noncommercial and restaurant- adjacent spaces like college campuses, train stations, and airports, but the company is currently looking at implementing it more in the foodservice arena. The next step for ZenBlen is to get the current make time from three and a half minutes down to 90 seconds.
Lab2Fab’s Fizzbot smart beverage dispenser At first glance, Fizzbot looks a lot like a Co - ca-Cola Freestyle Machine. But the beverage solution, designed by Middleby’s Lab2Fab engineering foodservice company, can au- tomatically dispense a soft drink, custom- ize ice levels, and then seal the completed beverage with a spill-proof plastic covering without need of human intervention. The solution, which was co-designed in partnership with Yum Brands, is created to run in the background while a quick-service employee is otherwise interacting with a customer. “So the way it works is you select your flavor, three different sizes of your cups, and you can also select the amount of ice that you want,” Julian Lorezno, vice president of regional sales for Middleby, said. “The POS makes the order, it is sent to the machine, and it starts to make it without my interaction, so I can prepare the food. Then you just bring out the drink at the same time as the food. … You can make a drink in eight seconds, and about 450
BY JOANNA FANTOZZI SENIOR EDITOR NATION’S RESTAURANT NEWS
T echnology-driven staffing solutions are always a crowd-pleaser at the National Restaurant Association Show, especially with the restaurant industry’s high turnover rate. This year, a surprising trend emerged at the Tech Pavil- ion at the annual Restaurant Show in Chica- go: beverage automation made with labor mitigation in mind. Here are three new beverage automa- tion products that were being showcased at this year’s Restaurant Show. Artly Coffee’s robot barista Though robot baristas have appeared at past Restaurant Shows, Artly Coffee stands out by using motion capture technology to replicate an international barista champi- on’s exact movements and techniques for crafting lattes and espresso drinks. Artly’s robot barista follows pre-pro- grammed recipes with consistent timing: under three minutes for lattes and just over a minute for Americanos. Each drink is fin - ished with decorative latte art, and the sys- tem engages customers by complimenting their choices and announcing completed orders by name. “We use a combination of AI, robotics, computer vision, and machine learning to make the perfect latte every time,” Daniel Lee, vice president at Artly Coffee said. “On the robotic arm, you have a camera that will scan the QR codes [from each order] and tell it exactly what to do. They’ll also do multiple quality checks each step of the way. … Our ‘wow factor’ is our latte art. Joe Yang was last year’s U.S. barista champion. We put VR equipment on his arm, and we motion cap- tured his wrists and elbow movements and programmed that into the robot.” Artly’s latte art can currently be found at the company’s storefront in San Francisco, and the company is also testing out its tech- nology with other retail, business, and non- commercial customers—no human barista needed.
The Artly Coffee robot was just one automated beverage solution at the Show. | Photo By Joanna Fantozzi
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National Restaurant Association Show 2025
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