In Pasadena, A New Way Of Flipping Burgers.

Embedded in the story of food is the story of people: in modern society, the people who grow and harvest it, the people who distribute it, the people who cook it, and if we are at a restaurant, the people who serve it. Eventually, it reaches us. Cooking and eating together are essential parts of our days and lives. However, at one restaurant in Pasadena, food is the story of… a robot.

CaliExpress by Flippy is a partnership between Miso Robotics, the Cali Group, and PopID. Miso Robotics was founded in 2016 by a trio of Caltech alumni [David Zito (BS ‘97, Dabney), Ryan Sinnet (BS ‘07, Page), Rob Anderson (BS ‘16, Page/Fleming)] who have been working on Flippy (a robotic chef) and its predecessors for over five years.

I went to CaliExpress for the first time on a hot day this past August, and invited my uncle and my parents to come along. Located at the corner of Green and Madison in the Playhouse Village in Pasadena, the restaurant is housed in a traditional brick building with high ceilings and large windows that let in natural light. On one wall is a refrigerator housing drinks, and opposite that are three digital ordering screens. These screens are equipped with face-recognition cameras; if you have a PopID account you can pay with your face, and if you sign up to PopID with PopPay, you can get up to $10 credit. The open floor plan makes it easy for the server robot’s deliveries (we chose a booth near one of the big windows), as there are only two tables in the center of the room.

The robot BurgerBot cooks all burgers with wagyu beef ground fresh for each order. The patties are then assembled with toppings by a person who places them on a delivery robot and sends it to your table. The fried items are all handled by Flippy (including french fries, waffle fries, onion rings, and chicken tenders). The only drawback to this system is that the burgers are all cooked to the same specification. One can not request a burger to be medium rare; they are all well done.

Good fast-food fries are hard to come by. Some are limp and soggy; others are crispy and burnt. Flippy’s fries, however, are neither of these extremes. We had four orders of fries between us (including one order of sweet potato waffle fries), and every one of them was cooked to perfection. I had the chicken tenders, which were amazing. My parents and my uncle all had burgers. There are two salads on the menu, and both were out of stock on the day of our visit. Unfortunately, there are no veggie burgers. If these were available, it would make for a more inclusive dining experience. The wait time for the food is longer than a fast-food restaurant, but still shorter than a traditional restaurant; it took close to 10 minutes to get our food.

What distinguishes this restaurant from others may not be for everyone. People bring a place to life, and a human workforce is something CaliExpress distinctly lacks. However, there is a market for this, as several other parties were there enjoying lunch when we were. Time will tell if this approach to dining will last, but it certainly makes for a unique experience right now.