Restaurants prep for long-term labor crunch by turning to robots to man the fryer, shuttle food to tables

At Inspire Brand’s Innovation Center in Atlanta, the Flippy robot is taking on a new challenge. The automated worker, made by Miso Robotics, first came onto the scene as a burger solution. Now, it’s frying wings for the first time.

The bots, known as Flippy 1 and 2, have been in development for nearly five years, taking on pilots at brands like CaliBurger and White Castle. The wings iteration is being tested at Inspire’s Buffalo Wild Wings brand as a way to ramp up production and speed. The hope is...