Four new restaurants and a new way to get a meal are coming to downtown Vancouver as part of the launch of Food Republic.
It's all part of NextGen Kitchens, a Vancouver-based company looking at issues restaurants are facing these days CEO and co-founder Ashkan Mirnabavi tells V.I.A..
A restaurateur himself, Mirnabavi says Food Republic, which opens April 17 at 488 Robson St., solves a few problems.
"As a restaurant owner, I was experiencing a lot of issues with labour shortages and increased costs," he says, pointing out that the incoming minimum wage increase will likely put more pressure on restaurants.
The Food Republic aims to both streamline things for food businesses and bring technology in to help with labour issues, operating like a "high-tech food court" he says.
How does this 'high-tech food court' work?
The Robson location will have four different restaurants operating out of it; for now, they're all brands owned by NextGen, but Mirnabavi says they're open to an outside brand moving in if it fits well.
The four options at Robson will be Wow Bao, Chicken & Co., One Spot, and Rad Salad.
Ordering, though, will be bundled, so a guest could order items from one or all four restaurants at once and have just one bill. Ordering will also be digital, either on a web or phone app, or at an onsite kiosk.
Unlike ghost kitchens, though, the restaurant's food prep area will all be open for people to watch their food be made, through glass walls. The food is then handed over to the customer. While there will be some space for sitting inside Food Republic, the expectation is most people will be eating somewhere else.
He notes that one group they're targeting is offices, so one order could be made from the four different kitchens.
High-tech employee
In addition to the streamlined ordering system, Mirnabavi says another piece of high-tech is coming this summer.
Essentially it'll be a salad (or bowl) making robot.
The machine will look like a line cooler, like what you would see at Subway. However, instead of a person standing at the counter and assembling a salad, a bowl will run underneath the containers, with ingredients added along the way. Mirnabavi notes that it automates a simple food assembly process that people aren't usually excited to do.
Mirnabavi is a co-founder of the company behind the robot, Cibotica, as well.
Plans to expand
He hopes the streamlined payment and ordering system, along with the automated food assembly, will help small restaurant businesses survive in the changing market.
"The challenge of finding people and the costs of operating a restaurant is super high," he says. "We wanted to be a model to showcase this new model of running a business."
He notes that his business is more about serving the restaurants than anyone else.
"We're not necessarily an operator, we're a facilitator," he says.
While the Robson location is the first, there are already plans for more Food Republics he says. And while he can't share locations publicly, he says they're close to closing a deal for a 20,000 sq. ft. location in Burnaby.
