Sweetgreen Infinite Kitchen Review: Robots Are Restaurants' Future

When I moved from New York City to the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois during the heart of the pandemic, I figured I'd be making some culinary compromises.

I'd have to trade NYC staples like Joe's Pizza for the casserole-style deep dish Chicago is best known for. If I wanted a Michelin star I'd have to drive an hour to downtown. Good bagels? Forget about it.

So imagine my surprise when Sweetgreen — the LA-based fast-casual salad restaurant with more than 200 locations nationwide — announced it was opening in Naperville. And not just any Sweetgreen. This was set to be the world's first robot-operated location.

The centerpiece of the restaurant is a massive apparatus called the Infinite Kitchen. Featuring dozens of clear glass tubes packed with Sweetgreen's 50-or-so ingredients, it looks like something you might find in a sci-fi movie. Already a Sweetgreen enthusiast from my time in NYC, I knew I had to try it. And when I made the trip, it exceeded even my wildest expectations.

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If this type of robo-driven restaurant turns out to be scalable, I feel confident saying what I experienced could very well be the future of the food industry. Now, without further adieu, here's what it's like to get salad at the world's first robo-Sweetgreen:

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