Eatsa shuts down 5 restaurants

Even robot revolutions have to scale back sometimes.

Eatsa, the San Francisco pioneer in restaurant automation, has closed its location in Berkeley as well as four others in New York and Washington, D.C.

Eatsa restaurants in the Financial District and the Rincon Center will remain open.

The company’s selling point is that diners can order a quinoa bowl without having to interact with another person. Orders are placed through a mobile app or an iPad, and customers pick their order up from a personal glass cubby. The concept reflects a trend toward increased automation in the food and beverage industry — another example being San Francisco’s Cafe X, which features a robotic arm as the barista in its Metreon location.

Eatsa said in a statement that the closures were the result of rapid expansion since it opened its first location two years ago.

“Operating in four different markets has made it difficult to quickly test and iterate our food product — something that is critical in any restaurant business, but is even more important when it comes to introducing a new type of nutritious fare,” the statement reads.

The company has consistently used customer feedback to adjust various aspects of its menu, from pricing to offerings. Eatsa said it will focus on enabling other restaurants to use its technology.

“We hope that with fewer locations, we can experiment and innovate faster and resume our retail expansion in the future,” the company said.