Shin Starr’s Robotic Food Truck Kitchen Will Serve Up Korean Bbq At Techcrunch Disrupt 2025

When Shin Starr group retired to build an autonomous kitchen, nan institution knew that nan gimmick of robotic cooking wouldn’t transportation nan business. What would make Shin Starr’s OLHSO Korean BBQ nutrient truck successful is if it could navigator and present a hot, fresh, tasty repast astatine a reasonable price.

“At nan extremity of nan day, customers don’t attraction astir nan type of rocket subject that is successful your motortruck aliases successful your kitchen,” Kish Shin, co-founder and CEO of Shin Starr, told TechCrunch. “They attraction astir nan worth they’re getting.”

Han Sungil, a cook pinch complete 18 restaurants successful Korea, came to nan U.S. to lead Shin Starr’s culinary operations, which includes a brick and mortar restaurant successful San Mateo — so, there’s precocious expectations for nan food. We can’t opportunity from acquisition whether nan nutrient is simply a hit, but we’ll surely beryllium taste-testing immoderate wagyu galbi and tteokbokki erstwhile nan nutrient motortruck rolls up to TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, wherever Shin Starr is portion of nan Startup Battlefield 200.

Companies for illustration DoorDash are experimenting pinch autonomous transportation robots, but Shin Starr is doing nan reverse: A quality drives nan truck, but nan assemblage of nan conveyance is outfitted pinch nan company’s “Autowok,” a modular, AI-powered robotics strategy that automates cooking, serving, and cleaning. Once Han preps nan ingredients, nan Autowok handles nan rest.

While driving connected nan highway, Shin Starr’s robotic strategy retrieves nan prepared, caller ingredients from a refrigerator, past places them connected a conveyor belt. They’re past dropped into a tilted cylindrical canister, which climbs to precocious heats for illustration a wok and rotates to navigator nan food. After nan nutrient is cooked and tipped into its packaging, nan strategy tin cleanable and sanitize nan canister and put it backmost into nan travel for cooking.

“It was designed to beryllium capable to service nutrient and navigator en route,” Shin said. “So, if you person ordered a wagyu beef crockery from your location, let’s opportunity nan motortruck was 15 minutes away. It takes america 8 minutes to navigator wagyu beef [so it] won’t commencement cooking your nutrient until it has moved 7 minutes person to your location, truthful that erstwhile you get your food, your nutrient is virtually freshly cooked.”

Image Credits:Shin Starr

Other robotic room startups person struggled to find product-market fit, but Shin Starr thinks it tin find its niche successful airports. Soon, nan institution will unfastened an OLHSO micro edifice successful a starring California airport, and if that goes smoothly, nan institution has different airports willing successful implementing nan technology.

Since their airdrome micro edifice does not request to beryllium staffed by humans, it tin run astatine immoderate hr of nan day.

“At 11 p.m., each nan restaurants adjacent down. There’s nary nutrient for nan adjacent 8 hours, and still, 10% of each group alert successful nan U.S. during those hours, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” said Tord Olav Dønnum, Shin Starr’s CMO. “This point will yet springiness you a fresh, high-quality edifice type of meal, without having to bargain a Snickers barroom from a vending machine, aliases a barren sandwich.”

Shin Starr snagged Gower Smith arsenic CPO, which is simply a wise hiring decision, since location are fewer group successful nan world who cognize arsenic overmuch arsenic Smith does astir high-tech automated retail. He’s a serial entrepreneur successful nan abstraction and astir precocious lead Swyft, which partners pinch companies for illustration Best Buy and CVS to create luxury vending machines successful places for illustration train stations and airports. This allows brands to group up shop without devoting quality labour aliases a important beingness footprint.

Smith said that nan automated quality of nan micro edifice makes it easier to springiness customers a prediction of really agelong it will return for their bid to cook; it’s useful successful a mounting for illustration an airport, wherever group whitethorn beryllium rushing to drawback a flight. The micro edifice needs periodic involution from a quality worker to restock nan fridge and hole nan ingredients, but otherwise, it should beryllium capable to tally smoothly connected its own.

“Airports is wherever we’ll start, but we’ll spell into hotels; group are quiet astatine 2 a.m. erstwhile they get successful from travels, and they want a high-quality meal,” Smith told TechCrunch. “If it’s successful a hospital, aliases connected a assemblage field astatine 2 a.m. … There are tons of these environments wherever we tin bring this benignant of experience.”

If you want to study much astir Shin Starr from nan institution itself — while besides checking retired dozens of others, proceeding their pitches, and listening to impermanent speakers connected 4 different stages — subordinate america astatine Disrupt, October 27 to 29, successful San Francisco. Learn much here.