America’s first fast-food hamburger chain, White Castle, has announced plans to pilot Miso Robotics' Robot-on-a-Rail (ROAR) autonomous grilling and frying kitchen assistant to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence and robotics in the restaurant industry.

ROAR, which is the new version of Flippy—the first autonomous grilling and frying kitchen assistant from Miso Robotics—will be integrated into kitchens for testing and future integration. During the deployment, autonomous frying will be put to work to enhance production speeds, improve labor allocation and provide an added layer of health and safety in the cooking process.

“Miso Robotics couldn't be more excited to bring Flippy ROAR into White Castle,” says Buck Jordan, CEO and co-founder of Miso Robotics.

“Artificial intelligence and robotics brings a very real opportunity to continuously enhance the cooking process and optimize taste for restaurants. White Castle's brand is iconic, navigating new challenges to bring their menu to more customers, prepared in a healthier environment by staff in better working conditions that adhere to social distancing needs is something only Miso Robotics can do.”

By equipping its kitchen with Flippy, White Castle is creating an avenue for reduced human contact with food during the cooking process, which reduces the potential for transmission of food pathogens during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The implementation also brings intelligence to cooking, tapping into sensors, intelligent monitoring and anticipated kitchen needs to keep food temperatures consistent, which helps ensure optimal quality for customers. Flippy will also allow team members to focus on more customer-experience driven tasks.

“Miso Robotics understood where we could improve and stay true to White Castle's brand of taste, innovation and best-in-class dining,” says Lisa Ingram, 4th generation family leader and CEO of White Castle.

“A great customer and employee experience is in our DNA, and we are thrilled to bring the future into our kitchen with solutions that will transform the industry and make the White Castle experience all that it can be for generations to come.”

Flippy ROAR will deploy later this fall. During the deployment, speeds in production, taste, quality and operational optimization with backend POS integration will be tested. Once integrated, Flippy ROAR's zero-footprint design will be tested to improve employee and food preparation, for wider location integration.