Marc Lore, the veteran e-commerce entrepreneur known for selling his previous startups to Amazon and Walmart, has revealed ambitious plans to infuse artificial intelligence into his current venture, Wonder. The centerpiece of those plans is Wonder Create, an initiative that would let anyone — from food entrepreneurs to social media influencers — use AI to design and launch their own restaurant brand in under a minute. 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.
Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything conference, Lore detailed how the platform works. It functions like a “Shopify front end with an AI prompt.” Users type in a description of the restaurant they want to build, and AI generates the name, branding, description, pictures, pricing, health information, and all the recipes. The restaurateur can refine the prompt if needed, and then launch the brand across all Wonder locations instantly. The company currently has 120 of these programmable cooking platforms in operation, projecting growth to 400 by 2026. As robotics are added, Lore noted that headcount won't be reduced; instead, throughput per kitchen will increase. “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,” he said, adding that the goal by 2035 is to have 1,000 unique restaurants operating out of a single kitchen.
Wonder's kitchens are not traditional restaurants; they are “programmable cooking platforms” capable of operating as 25 different types of restaurants based on cuisine. Each kitchen has a 700-ingredient library and a staff of up to 12 people, supplemented by cooking tech like conveyors and robotic arms. The company recently acquired Spice Robotics, a maker of an automatic bowl-making machine previously used by Sweetgreen. Next year, it plans to offer an “infinite sauce machine” capable of making about 80% of all sauces found in internet recipes today.
Marc Lore's background in e-commerce is extensive. He co-founded Diapers.com, which sold to Amazon in 2010 for $545 million, and later founded Jet.com, which Walmart acquired in 2016 for $3.3 billion. He served as Walmart's head of e-commerce until 2020, when he left to focus on Wonder. Wonder originally started as a fleet of food trucks but has evolved into fast-casual restaurants with 10 to 20 seats, all with all-electric kitchens. The company has also acquired Grubhub (the food delivery platform handling 250 million deliveries per year) and Blue Apron (the meal kit service), forming a vertically integrated dining and delivery ecosystem.
The AI-created restaurants are designed to allow people to experiment with food in new ways. A would-be restaurateur could test recipes to gauge customer reaction before adding dishes to a physical location. Lore sees other use cases, such as influencers connecting with their audience through their own restaurant brands without having to launch actual 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 explained.
However, whether many people actually want to launch such brands remains an open question. Ghost kitchens, a similar concept that promised to let brands sell food without owning a restaurant, had a rocky run in the early 2020s. High-profile operators scaled back or shut down after struggling to build customer loyalty. MrBeast Burger, a famous ghost kitchen experiment, vividly illustrated the challenge. The brand faced widespread complaints over inconsistent food quality due to relying on dozens of different contracted kitchens and staff. Wonder's programmable, increasingly automated kitchens are designed to solve that problem by centralizing production under consistent conditions.
There are still limits to Wonder's tech. Lore admitted that its robots cannot toss and stretch pizza dough or slice and roll sushi. Instead, Wonder focuses on simpler basics like burgers, chicken wings, fried chicken, and bowls. The strategy also includes acquiring existing restaurant brands. In February, Wonder bought New York City-based Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken for $6.5 million. “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 noted.
The intersection of AI, robotics, and food service is attracting significant investment and interest. Lore's vision aligns with broader trends in automation and personalization. The ability to generate a complete restaurant concept in under a minute could lower barriers to entry, allowing more people to test food concepts without the overhead of a physical location. However, the model's success will depend on customer adoption and trust. If AI-generated brands can maintain consistent quality across hundreds of locations, they could disrupt traditional fast casual dining. Wonder's acquisition of Grubhub provides a ready-made distribution channel for delivery, while Blue Apron adds meal kit expertise.
Lore's timeline for expansion is aggressive: from 120 kitchens now to 400 in 2026, and eventually 1,000 unique restaurants per kitchen by 2035. The company is betting that technological improvements in robotics and AI will enable higher throughput with the same labor footprint, which could improve margins and scalability. The infinite sauce machine and bowl-making robot are examples of targeted automation that can handle high-volume tasks. The 700-ingredient library allows for diverse cuisines without requiring extensive manual prep.
The broader implications for the food industry are significant. If successful, Wonder's model could reshape how restaurants are created and operated. Instead of months of planning, construction, and hiring, a brand can go live in minutes. This speed could accelerate food trends and allow individuals to monetize culinary creativity without large capital investment. But it also raises questions about authenticity, quality control, and the role of human chefs. Wonder currently does not aim to replace chefs entirely but to augment their capabilities.
As the system scales, Wonder will need to manage logistics across multiple locations, ensure food safety, and handle customer feedback. The same challenges that plagued ghost kitchens could reappear if the technology does not deliver consistent results. However, the centralized, tech-driven nature of Wonder's kitchens may mitigate some risks. Each kitchen follows standardized recipes and processes, with automation reducing variability. AI monitoring can track inventory, cooking times, and order quality in real time.
Marc Lore's track record of building and scaling successful startups gives investors confidence. His experience with logistics at Jet.com and Walmart e-commerce informs Wonder's approach. The company has raised substantial funding, though exact figures are not disclosed publicly. The integration of Grubhub and Blue Apron provides additional revenue streams and data that could inform menu development. Wonder's restaurants are already operating in several states, and the company plans to open in new markets as the kitchen network expands.
The concept of allowing anyone to start a restaurant via AI may appeal to influencers, small businesses, and even large corporations looking for temporary or seasonal brands. For example, a football influencer could launch a game-day snack brand, or a movie studio could promote a film through themed menu items. The ease of creation and distribution could lead to a proliferation of niche brands, similar to how Shopify enabled any individual to open an online store. The analogy is fitting, as Lore explicitly described Wonder Create as a “Shopify front end with an AI prompt.”
As the food industry continues to evolve, technology companies are finding ways to lower barriers and increase efficiency. The ghost kitchen bubble of the early 2020s demonstrated that demand for delivery-only food is real, but execution is difficult. Wonder's approach of owning the kitchens and investing in automation may offer a more sustainable model. If Lore's projections hold, we could see a future where a single 2,500-square-foot kitchen hosts hundreds of simultaneous restaurant brands, all created by AI and operated by robots. Whether consumers embrace that future remains to be seen, but Lore is betting big that they will.
Source: TechCrunch News