Marc Lore, a serial entrepreneur known for selling his startups to Amazon and Walmart, has ambitious plans to infuse artificial intelligence into his latest venture, Wonder. The centerpiece of these plans is Wonder Create, an initiative that promises to democratize the restaurant industry by allowing anyone to design and launch their own restaurant brand in under a minute using AI.
The virtual restaurant would then go live across Wonder's growing network of tech-enabled kitchen locations, currently numbering 120 and expected to reach 400 next year. These are not traditional restaurants; they are 'programmable cooking platforms' capable of operating as 25 different types of restaurants based on cuisine, within all-electric kitchens that are increasingly becoming robotic.
The Genesis of Wonder
Wonder is a vertically integrated dining and delivery platform that has evolved from food trucks to fast-casual restaurants with 10 to 20 seats. Each kitchen is designed to be a 'programmable cooking platform' that can switch between cuisines instantly. Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference, Lore explained that these kitchens have a 700-ingredient library and can serve up to 25 different restaurant brands from a single location.
The company's approach combines human staff with cooking technology, including conveyors and robotic arms, to streamline food preparation. To enhance this capability, Wonder recently acquired Spice Robotics, a maker of automatic bowl-making machines used by Sweetgreen. Next year, it plans to introduce an 'infinite sauce machine' that can produce about 80% of all sauces found in recipes on the internet today.
Wonder Create: The AI-Powered Restaurant Builder
Wonder Create was announced earlier this year as a way for anyone to use Wonder's software to launch their own restaurant brand and recipes. At the WSJ event, Lore provided more details on how AI would power this system. 'You type in what kind of restaurant you want to build. It builds the restaurant—AI does—in under a minute. It does the name, branding, description, pictures, pricing, health information, and all the recipes for your restaurant,' Lore explained.
The would-be restaurateur could then refine the prompt if changes were needed. When ready to go live, the restaurant would launch across all of Wonder's locations. The company currently has 120 of these programmable cooking platforms in operation, with plans to expand to 400 next year. As robotics are integrated, the company expects to increase the number of meals a kitchen can produce without adding staff. 'We have about 7 million throughput capacity with 12 people. We see a path to getting to 20 million throughput out of 2,500 square feet with just 12 people,' Lore added.
Potential Use Cases and Market Impact
The goal with these AI-created restaurants is to allow people to experiment with food in new ways. A restaurateur could test recipes to gauge customer reaction before adding dishes to their own brick-and-mortar locations. Lore sees other use cases, like letting influencers connect with their audience through their own restaurant brands without having to actually launch physical chains. 'It could be a mega-influencer, a micro-influencer—anyone that wants to monetize their following. Or it could be a private trainer that wants to make specific bowls. It could be a not-for-profit. It could be Disney for marketing their new movie. Anybody can make a restaurant,' Lore noted.
However, the concept of ghost kitchens—virtual restaurants without physical storefronts—had a rocky run in the early 2020s. High-profile operators like MrBeast Burger faced widespread complaints over inconsistent food quality due to reliance on multiple contracted kitchens. Wonder's programmable, increasingly automated kitchens are designed to solve exactly that problem by ensuring consistency across all locations.
Lore's Track Record and Strategic Acquisitions
Marc Lore is no stranger to disruption. He co-founded Diapers.com, which was sold to Amazon in 2011, and later founded Jet.com, which was acquired by Walmart in 2016. After leaving Walmart in 2021, he focused on Wonder, which has since acquired Grubhub for its 250-million-deliveries-per-year business and Blue Apron for its meal kit business. Wonder is now buying restaurant brands, like New York City-based Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken, which it snapped up for $6.5 million in February. 'When you buy a brand—and you can buy a brand that has 10 locations, or even 50 locations—and then overnight put it in 1,000, there's just an incredible arbitrage there,' Lore explained.
Challenges and Limitations
Despite the promise of AI and automation, there are still limits. Wonder's team and robots cannot toss and stretch pizza dough or slice and roll sushi. Instead, the focus is on simpler basics like burgers, chicken wings, fried chicken, and bowls. The company is also working on scaling its technology to handle more complex tasks in the future.
The broader question remains: will people actually want to create their own restaurant brands? The ghost kitchen boom and bust suggests that building customer loyalty is difficult without a physical presence. But Wonder's integration of delivery, meal kits, and now AI-driven brand creation could offer a new path forward. By combining a vast ingredient library, robotic cooking, and a proven distribution network, Lore aims to turn anyone into a restaurateur—and perhaps redefine the way we think about food entrepreneurship.
Source: TechCrunch News