A fully automated restaurant is going to be pretty soulless, no human interaction. I guess that would be better than bad human interaction, but I’d be a little bothered to be the only person, at all, in a restaurant. Probably get it to go.
You don’t really get human interaction in a fully staffed fast food restaurant *now*. :P
Also, the automats of old may have had humans behind the wall of food, but at many of them you never saw a human from the time you walked in until the time you walked out. You put coins in slots and pulled your desired item out, no cashier.
There will still be humans in the store assuming they don’t go to a ‘giant kiosk’ model - have to have someone supervising the machines and able to step in if something happens. If they do the giant kiosk model, there won’t be anything but a flat wall where the counter used to be, which will be studded with order touchscreens, money handling input and outputs and a food dispensing slot.
FYI, they already have fresh pizza making kiosks/vending machines. The Italians came up with it and apparently it’s all the rage over there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChQ8ylWiq80
You actually go to fast food restaurants for the social interaction?
For a “sit-down” restaurant, I could understand wanting to speak to a human, but for fast-food the whole process is about the production of a quick meal. The workers in fast food are only polite (relatively speaking) because it’s a requirement of the brand to maintain a friendly image.