Automated Creator burger concept unveils open-sourced pressurized takeout window amidst coronavirus crisis

The makers of Creator, the fully automated burger concept in San Francisco, have designed another useful restaurant tool for a pandemic: A contact-free takeout window.

With restaurants limited to takeout and delivery, many are looking for ways to protect both guests and workers by limiting contact. Creator tweaked its burger bot to ensure guests get their burgers hot off the grill but without entering the restaurant.

"Protecting retail staff is literally a life-or-death circumstance, so we're happy to help and coordinate," founder Alex Vardakostas told Fast Company.

The Creator Transfer Chamber, as it’s called, is currently operating at Creator in San Francisco where the restaurant is takeout and delivery only. As it did before, the bot makes the burger with minimal human intervention. But now the burger is placed in a chamber with a pressurized window to the outside that is sealed off and self-sanitizing between orders.

Before meals reach the window, they are packed in hermetically double-sealed bags with a heat sealer and a tamper-evident sticker.

Because such contact-free exchanges will be increasingly in demand, Creator has open-sourced the design to make it available to any takeout operator.

Take a look at how Creator burgers are made and transferred to guests below.

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