At the San Francisco restaurant Creator, cheeseburgers are made entirely by a new autonomous machine. When I ask how a startup launching one eatery at a time could become a $10 billion company, Creator co-founder and CEO Alex Vardakostas looks me dead in the eye and says, “the market is much bigger than that.”

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 Watch

Link to the latest WSJ news story about fast food automation: This Burger Bot Makes Your Lunch With No Human Help

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Glossary

• to grate sth – reduce (food) to small shreds by rubbing it on a grater
  
• to grind sth – reduce (something) to small particles or powder by crushing it
• crust – the tough outer part of a loaf of bread
  
• to keep pace – to develop or progress at the same rate as something else
  
• to charbroil – grill (food, especially meat) on a rack over charcoal
• to tinker (with sth) – attempt to repair or improve something in a casual or desultory way
  
• glimpse – a momentary or partial view
  
• to tackle – make determined efforts to deal with (a problem or difficult task)

Watch and listen

Answer the questions below.

• What is America’s greatest culinary delight? (00:20)
  
• What will Creator do and how? (00:35)
  
• How much will the burgers cost? (01:40)
  
• What problems does the machine solve? (01:50)
  
• What does the owner of Corner Bistro say in reaction? (02:50)

Practice Makes Perfect

Fill in the blanks with the active or passive form of the verb Go to: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/creator-hamburger-robot/ to find out more.

Here’s how Creator’s burger-cooking bot 1______(work) at its 680 Folsom Street location in San Francisco.

Once you order your burger style through a human concierge on a tablet, a compressed air tube 2______(push) a baked-that-day bun into an elevator on the right.

It’s 3______(saw) in half by a vibrating knife before 4______(be) toasted and buttered as it’s 5______(lower) to the conveyor belt. Sauces measured by the milliliter and spices by the gram are automatically 6______(squirt) onto the bun. Whole pickles, tomatoes, onions and blocks of nice cheese get slices 7______(shave) off just a second before they’re 8______(drop) on top.

Meanwhile, the robot 9______(grind) hormone-free, pasture-raised brisket and chuck steak to order. But rather than mash them all up, the strands of meat hang vertically and are lightly 10______(press) together. They 11______(form) a loose but auto-griddleable patty that’s then 12______(plop) onto the bun before the whole package 13______(slide) out of the machine after a total time of about five minutes.

Answers:

1. works 2. pushes 3. sawed 4. being 5. lowered 6. squirted 7. shaved 8. dropped 9. grinds 10. pressed 11. form 12. plopped 13. slides

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