Spyce Kitchen or just Spyce was a

robotic Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

-powered

restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...

which prepares food in "three minutes or less".

History

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

graduates Michael Farid, Brady Knight, Luke Schlueter and Kale Rogers developed the kitchen using seven autonomous work stations to prepare bowl-based meals using healthy ingredients such as

kale Kale (), also called leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars primarily grown for their Leaf vegetable, edible leaves; it has also been used as an ornamental plant. Its multiple different cultivars vary quite ...

bean A bean is the seed of some plants in the legume family (Fabaceae) used as a vegetable for human consumption or animal feed. The seeds are often preserved through drying (a ''pulse''), but fresh beans are also sold. Dried beans are traditi ...

s and

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

s. The four graduates wanted to make healthy meals more affordable, so they built the robotic technology and initially served the food to students at an MIT

dining hall A cafeteria, called canteen outside the U.S., is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether in a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a schoo ...

. The group received the $10,000 "Eat It" Lemelson-MIT undergraduate prize in 2016 as one of America's top two collegiate inventors in

food technology Food technology is a branch of food science that addresses the production, preservation, quality control and research and development of food products. It may also be understood as the science of ensuring that a society is food secure and ha ...

. The four then teamed up with chef Daniel Boulud to create the new

menu In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to the customer. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose, often with prices shown – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-est ...

for their restaurant. Prices started at $7.50 for an entire meal in a bowl at their first real branch, which opened on May 3, 2018, in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Massachusetts. Referred to as the "Spyce Boys", the four founders were inspired by their experiences as hungry

student athlete Student athlete (or student–athlete) is a term used principally in universities in the United States and Canada to describe students enrolled at postsecondary educational institutions, principally colleges and universities, but also at sec ...

s on tight budgets. Spyce Kitchen automated cooking units also clean up after cooking and dirtying the cooking apparatus.

Funding

Spyce raised $21 million in

series A funding A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in excha ...

in September 2018, led by venture capital firms

Maveron Maveron is an American venture capital firm that invests in consumer-only and early-stage companies, with offices in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California. The firm was co-founded by Dan Levitan and former Starbucks chief executive ...

Collaborative Fund Collaborative Fund is a venture capital firm that provides seed and early stage funding to consumer industry and climate technology companies. Firm Founded in 2010 by Craig Shapiro, the firm is based in New York City, New York, with approximat ...

, and

Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures is a private American venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded by entrepreneur Vinod Khosla in 2004. The firm works with early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile technology, artifici ...

Restaurants

Spyce operated and then shuttered two restaurants in the Greater Boston area. Their first restaurant was located at 241 Washington St in downtown Boston. Their second restaurant, which opened in February 2021, was located at 1 Brattle Square, in

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, C ...

Acquisition by Sweetgreen and closure

In 2021, the company was acquired by

Sweetgreen Sweetgreen (legally Sweetgreen, Inc., stylized as sweetgreen, previously swɘetgreen) is an American fast casual restaurant Chain store, chain that serves salads. It was founded in November 2006 by Nicolas Jammet, Nathaniel Ru, and Jonathan Ne ...

, a chain of salad restaurants. Both Spyce restaurants were closed following the Sweetgreen acquisition, "to focus on developing technology for Sweetgreen restaurants". The downtown Boston location closed October 22, 2021, and the Harvard Square location closed February 18, 2022.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.spyce.com/ Robotics Robotic restaurants