When Shin Star set out to build an autonomous kitchen, the company knew the gimmick of robotic cooking wouldn’t take off the business. what will shin star make OLHSO Korean BBQ Food Truck Success is when it can cook and deliver hot, fresh, delicious food at a reasonable price.
“Ultimately, customers don’t care what kind of rocket science you have in your truck or in your kitchen,” Kish Shin, co-founder and CEO of Shin Star, told TechCrunch. “They care about the value they are getting.”
Han Sungil, chef of more than 18 restaurants in Korea, came to the US to lead Shin Star’s culinary operations, which includes a Brick-and-Mortar Restaurant In San Mateo – so there are high expectations from the food. We can’t say from experience whether the food is a hit or not, but we’ll definitely be tasting some Wagyu Galbi and Tteokbokki when the food truck comes to TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, where Shin Star Startup is part of the Battlefield 200.
Companies like DoorDash are experimenting with autonomous delivery robots, but Shin Star is doing the opposite: The truck is driven by a human, but the body of the vehicle is equipped with the company’s “AutoVoc,” a modular, AI-powered robotics system that automates cooking, serving, and cleaning. Once Han creates the content, AutoVoc takes care of the rest.
As the truck travels down the highway, Shin Star’s robotic system extracts prepared, fresh ingredients from the refrigerator, then places them on a conveyor belt. They are then put into a tilted cylindrical canister, which is mounted on a high flame like a wok and rotated to cook the food. After the food is cooked and put into its packaging, the system can clean and sanitize the canister and put it back into circulation for cooking.
“It was designed to be able to serve and cook food on the go,” Shin said. “So, if you ordered a Wagyu beef dish from your location, let’s say the truck was 15 minutes away. It takes us eight minutes to cook Wagyu beef (so it) won’t start cooking your food until it gets seven minutes closer to your location, so when you get your food, your food is literally freshly cooked.”
Other robotic kitchen startups have struggled to find product-market fit, but Shin Star thinks it can find its niche in airports. Soon the company will open an OLHSO micro restaurant at a major airport in California, and if that goes smoothly, the company has other airports interested in implementing this technology.
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Since their airport micro restaurant does not require human staff, it can operate at any time of the day.
“At 11 p.m., all restaurants close. There’s no food for the next eight hours, and yet, during those hours, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., 10% of all people fly into the U.S.,” said Tord Olav Donnum, CMO of Shin Star. “This thing will finally give you a fresh, high-quality restaurant type meal, without having to buy a Snickers bar from a vending machine or a dry sandwich.”
Shin Star appointed Gower Smith as CPO, which is a wise hiring decision, as there are few people in the world who know as much about high-tech automated retailing as Smith does. He is a serial entrepreneur in this field and has recently become a leading SwiftWhich partners with companies like Best Buy and CVS to create luxury vending machines in places like train stations and airports. This allows brands to set up shop without devoting human labor or a significant physical footprint.
Smith said the automated nature of micro restaurants makes it easier for customers to estimate how long it will take for their order to be cooked; This is useful in settings like airports, where people may be rushing to catch a flight. Micro restaurants require the intervention of a human worker from time to time to refill the fridge and prepare ingredients, but otherwise, it should be able to run smoothly on its own.
“Airports are where we’ll start, but we’ll move into hotels; when people come from traveling they’re hungry at 2 a.m. and they want high-quality food,” Smith told TechCrunch. “If it’s in a hospital, or on a college campus at 2 o’clock in the morning… there are a lot of environments where we can bring this type of experience.”
If you want to learn more about Shin Star from the company itself – as well as check out dozens of others, hear their pitches, and listen to guest speakers on four different stages – join us at Disrupt October 27 to 29 in San Francisco. Learn more here,
