Now robots bring burgers
White Castle, the fast food brand famous for small square burgers, is testing a new way of delivering food. This summer in Chicago, some White Castle orders on Uber Eats will be delivered to your home by robots instead of people.
The robots are owned by a company called Coco Robotics. The robots are tiny and roll on pavements and bring food to people’s doorsteps. Coco made this announcement of the deal with White Castle in a Monday press release.
How it works
The robots are coupled with White Castle’s checkout system by a service called Checkmate. This means that the restaurant can track where the robot is and when the food will be delivered.
If a Chicago customer orders White Castle via the Uber Eats app, the customer may get their order delivered by a robot. No extra actions and no extra charge to the customer — just like regular delivery.
Why white castle chose robots
White Castle asserts that robots streamline our restaurant. Typically, workers must transfer orders to human delivery drivers. Drivers sometimes clog up parking lots or slow down the restaurant drive-thru. With robots, traffic is lower and fewer delays occur.
Chris Shaffery, the vice president of operations at White Castle, said, “By testing Coco’s robots at a high-traffic location, we’re seeking to ease congestion, speed up service, and allow our team to stay focused on quality—helping us serve more customers more efficiently.”
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Robots already busy in other cities
Coco Robotics has already done more than 500,000 deliveries in Los Angeles, Miami, and even Helsinki, Finland. They’ve also been working with Uber Eats and DoorDash in Chicago for some time now.
While 500,000 sounds large, it’s small compared to Uber’s entire delivery business. During the first quarter of 2025, Uber reported more than 3 billion total trips — not just rides, but food deliveries.
The bigger picture: Uber’s delivery business
Uber’s delivery half of the business is enormous. They did over $20 billion worth of deliveries in a single quarter and brought in around $3.8 billion in revenue on it. This revenue is not significantly lower than the $6.5 billion generated by their rideshare segment during the same time frame.
To date, robot deliveries represent a tiny portion of Uber’s massive delivery business. Because of that, those kinds of robots aren’t going to create major job shifts for human delivery drivers — at least not yet.
White Castle enters a rising trend
White Castle is not the first fast-food restaurant to have robots serve. Shake Shack also started using a different robot company called Serve Robotics in Los Angeles in 2024. Serve and Coco are now increasing their agreements with Uber Eats.
Uber wants to use robots from other businesses to save money and make more money. Drivers are expensive to pay. If it were possible to get the work done by robots, Uber and restaurants would be saving money.
DoorDash is also testing robots
Earlier this year, DoorDash, another food delivery service, launched its own robot delivery program using Coco. That means Coco’s robots are being offered with both Uber Eats and DoorDash in Chicago.
DoorDash could employ robot delivery to better compete with Uber Eats if robot delivery becomes more popular and stable.
Coco is growing fast
To fund its expanding fleet of robots, Coco saw a recent investment of \$80 million from investors. The funds will be used to grow to 10,000 delivery robots.
Coco is not currently a publicly traded company, so its books are not public. However, a rival business, Serve Robotics, is publicly traded. Its latest financial statements reveal the robot delivery business still has issues.
Is it a good business?
In Serve Robotics’ latest financial report, the firm lost over $13 million in just one quarter. They made hardly $440,000 in revenue. This indicates that although robot delivery sounds appealing and high-tech, it has not yet proven to be financially successful.
They are also expensive to produce and keep. So although they’re great and help restaurants, they might take some time before they can be a profitable business in the food delivery industry.
Customers don’t need to do anything special
If you live in Chicago and you have White Castle delivered via Uber Eats, your food might arrive in a robot. You don’t even get the option to choose to have it delivered in a robot. It’s automatically selected for you by the app. And there’s no extra charge to pay.
The plan is to make it as convenient and easy as regular delivery—maybe even faster.
Why Chicago?
Coco described how Chicago is a very crucial location for piloting the delivery robots. The city has busy streets, changeable weather, and plenty of customers. This is a good environment to pilot how the robots are performing in real-world applications.
If all goes according to plan in Chicago, Coco and White Castle would be able to expand robot delivery to other cities someday.
What the robots look like
Coco’s robots are small, box-shaped machines with wheels. They roll on sidewalks and crosswalks, avoiding pedestrians and cars. The robot’s food is in a locked compartment that you can access once you get it home.
When the robot arrives at your home or apartment, it sends you a notification through the Uber Eats app. You then step outside, open the robot, and grab your food.
What this means for the future
Robot delivery is new, but it’s growing fast. As more chains like Shake Shack and White Castle accept robots, it’s not hard to imagine them appearing on sidewalks in most cities.
Robots today are just a small part of how food is delivered. But with deep investments and new tech, they can begin to play an even bigger part in our lives.
