It’s a Bay Area rollout for robot woks.
A Korean restaurant technology startup has recently launched two food trucks in Foster City that autonomously cook delivery meals on the way to the door, a robotic vision shared by pizza delivery unicorn Zume, which proved to be a cautionary tale.
Since last year CEO Kish Shin's Shin Starr Presents Corp. has been preparing the U.S. prototype of the Olhso Korean BBQ and Seafood truck, which first debuted in Seoul. The venture, backed by a smattering of Korean and U.S.- based investors, aims to deliver quality food faster and with better margins afforded by savings on labor costs: With the assistance of its robotic kitchen, each truck needs just one employee, a driver, for a full day's service.
Olhso (which translates to "that's right” in Korean) is also developing a brick-and-mortar restaurant, called Olhso House, at 236 S B St. in San Mateo with a target opening date before year end. Olhso enlisted Los Angeles-based consultant Roaming Hunger to help build and design its two trucks.
Olhso’s "auto-wok," in tandem with the truck's automated fridge unit and robot "handler," assembles and cooks the ingredients and pours the finished meal into its paper bowl. The robot can prepare multiple orders at once and self-sanitizes between each meal.
Orders are coordinated through a smartphone app, which communicates to the robot kitchen when to start preparations en-route (when the truck is about 10 to 15 minutes away) so that meals are at their peak freshness upon arrival.
The debut truck menu features four bowls (wagyu galbi short ribs; dak galbi spicy chicken; kimchi shrimp with pork belly; and japchae vegetarian stir fry noodles) ranging in price from $25 to $55. The steep price is due to each meal coming in double-portion size — fit for two to three people — which Shin said was done to keep the service's average ticket price sustainable and minimize technical complexity and supply runs to the commissary kitchen.
Olhso’s two trucks for now serve only within Foster City and scheduled private catering events around the Bay Area, but the aim is to expand its range to Santa Clara County in the near future.
Shin said the truck generated more than $2,000 in revenue over a few hours while parked outside of a local swimming tournament on a recent weekend in the East Bay. He added that with the current average ticket of roughly $80, the truck aims for a baseline of between 20 to 30 orders per day.
"We're trying to present a very high-quality format of delivery food service," Shin said. "It's about the 'P' of profit margin, rather than chasing after the 'Q' of quantity."
The next generation of the truck will switch to a mostly stationary "vending machine" type of model capable of single portions at a lower price point while parked at food festivals or curbside. Shin said the company is entertaining "24/7" availability in venues where scale and efficiency can come into play such as airports, corporate facilities, universities and malls.
