The "dough feeder." The sauce and cheese modules - even the pepperoni-sprinkler. All lay still, like relics of a culinary revolution that never quite rose.
A now-defunct duo of robots was supposed to be churning out pizzas at a Moto Pizza restaurant in Seattle. But in May, they were rendered "basically useless" when their supplier, Picnic, abruptly shut down. Technical support evaporated, leaving founder and CEO Lee Kindell staring at $160,000 (£118,000) worth of cabinet-like machines and wondering if buying pizza bots was really worth it.
"I don't know if I want to do a partnership again because of the failures," he says, a sentiment that echoes through the graveyard of pizza automation startups.
The robot pizza-making business has indeed been littered with sorry tales of overcooked promises and melting fortunes. Besides Picnic, companies like Zume, Pazzi, and Basil Street have come and gone, each with their own robotic arms or vending machines that failed to find a permanent slice of the market.
Although fast food might seem an easy target for automation, it's proved harder than many expected. Plus, bringing robots into pizza restaurants could take away entry-level jobs in the hospitality sector. Is the future really filled with robotic pizza?
"We haven't yet seen any of the success stories materialise the way some people thought they would," admits Sara Senatore, senior restaurants analyst at Bank of America, which has financial interests in Papa Johns and Domino's. Food preparation bots are sometimes clumsy, dropping ingredients in the wrong places, she explains. Conversely, "Humans are very efficient at making pizza."
But Kindell, despite his frustrations, is surprisingly undeterred. He's a fan of full automation. "I want to be able to walk up to, let's say, a type of kiosk, put in your order, and it makes a fresh pizza," he tells the BBC. Kindell, who once made all his dough by hand until an elbow tendon injury forced him to investigate machines, is now working on his own pizza-making robot. He declines to share details, but the contraption will make square pan-style pies and is inspired by how 3D printers work. If things go well, he could have a fully operational version by the summer of 2027.
Given that he admits he has "no experience" in robotics, one might question his sanity. But Kindell notes that failed pizza robot companies have nonetheless generated useful data and made strides in developing technology. It's just a matter of time before someone gets these things to work, he insists.
On jobs, he claims that even "fully autonomous" pizza robots won't threaten workers. Previously, at T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners, he used Picnic's robots. Usually, he'd need about 10 people to make pizza; with robots, that fell to two. But the other eight were still employed, interacting with customers and advertising pizza around the stadium. "We had so many more people able to hand out the pizza," says Kindell. "It was so much faster."
For some pizza robotics engineers, speed is certainly a motivator. Last year at John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Ohio, Canadian firm Appetronix installed a 24/7 robotic pizza unit for the Donatos pizza chain. Appetronix is working on newer versions that it claims will assemble pizzas at a furious pace. The goal is to have a pizza sliding out "every minute," says co-founder and CEO Nipun Sharma. His team is investigating methods of depositing sauce faster than the current 9.5 seconds. "Think of it as a shower head that blasts the sauce in 1.5 seconds," says Sharma. The company is even investigating lasers and ultrasound as potentially speedier methods of slicing pizzas than a traditional knife blade.
Many people enjoy hand-crafted pizza, though. Doesn't a machine making your dinner take away the human connection we might otherwise feel with food? "What we're going after is a chain market," replies Sharma. "You want the pizza to taste the same every single time."
This divide, between businesses focused on repeatability and those who promise a more artisanal, human-fronted experience, predates robotics. But it will likely shape how and where technology arrives in the world of pizza.
Five years ago, Paul Giannone, owner of Paulie Gee's pizza restaurants, vowed to Mashable that he would "never" use a robot. "That is still the case," he tells the BBC. "Our shops offer a dining experience with personal customer service a high priority."
Senatore says that human interaction is potentially an even more important factor today than in the past, including for restaurants that do decide to introduce pizza robots. "It's a risky proposition to not have people," she says. Pizza parlours could lose their "human touch," and also frustrate customers should the machines go wrong while no one is around to step in.
But expect new pizza tech to keep appearing. Not least because the meal-assembling robot companies that have seemingly disappeared are actually still influencing food start-ups. The intellectual property formerly owned by Zume - more than 300 patents - was bought up by Miso Robotics of California. "Their vision for robotic pizza making was really brilliant," says CEO Rich Hull. "I just think they were a beat too early in the market." Customers weren't "ready" for robot-made pizza, he asserts.
Miso Robotics makes a French fry-cooking bot called Flippy, already in use in some US fast food restaurants. The Zume patents could help Miso Robotics expand Flippy's capabilities, suggests Hull, though he does not cite any specific example. "That's one of those things that we're going to be learning about," he says.
The natural cut-and-thrust of the fast food pizza business looks set to continue. Kindell remains set on automating pizza production. "There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a fully autonomous pizza robot," he says. "It's just, who's going to do it first?"