The robots are coming, and they’re bringing us food.
When Uber Eats launched robotic food deliveries in Midtown Atlanta in June, it was the first open-ended deployment of autonomous delivery robots on the city’s public streets. But they weren’t the first of their kind we’ve seen in the metro area.
Georgia lawmakers gave delivery robots the go-ahead in 2022, approving the use of “autonomous delivery devices” weighing less than 500 pounds and traveling at less than 45 mph. The law includes many other restrictions, like a 4 mph speed limit for robots on sidewalks and insurance requirements for their owners.
Since then, delivery robots have been spotted in a couple of neighborhoods around town.
Georgia Tech campus
Georgia Tech’s dining services department launched a robot delivery program in August, according to the institute’s website. The Starship robots can be found on the Midtown Atlanta campus, trundling along the sidewalks of Tech Square to the dorms on West Campus and everywhere in between.
According to the company’s website, Starship is the world leader in robot deliveries, with more than 150 service areas and more than 8 million deliveries completed.
Their robots are relatively short and square, almost small enough to fit within a 2-foot cube. They travel on six small wheels and each carries a 30-inch flagstick for visibility. The robots typically work within a 2-mile radius, according to the company website.
There’s a catch: These delivery robots are only available to students at Georgia Tech, and they don’t leave the school’s campus.
Metro Atlanta Chick-fil-A locations
Shortly after Georgia’s delivery robot law was passed in 2022, Chick-fil-A began testing robots on a temporary basis around metro Atlanta. The robots were active in Woodstock, Alpharetta and Buckhead until late 2024, according to Chick-fil-A.
Chick-fil-A has tested multiple types of robots in various markets, including models from Refraction AI and Kiwi Campus, Nation’s Restaurant News reported. The Refraction AI robots are larger, road-going vehicles — about 4½ feet long and 5 feet tall. The Kiwibots are similar in size to the Starship robots and other cutesy sidewalk dwellers seen on college campuses.
Though Chick-fil-A’s robots frequently caused a stir on social media, they are not currently making deliveries in metro Atlanta. After the testing period concluded in 2024, Chick-fil-A said it was evaluating the program and did not have plans to expand it.
Robots inside restaurants
A handful of restaurants began introducing robots in their dining rooms more than five years ago, like Big Bang Pizza in Brookhaven. Since then, robots that deliver food inside a restaurant’s dining room or help bus tables have become more common. Diners can find robots on duty at Dumpling Factory in West Midtown, Paschal’s in downtown and Tastee Spoon in Dunwoody, among others.
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