A Crazy Jetsons-Like Automated Food Restaurant Is Coming to the Westfield Topanga

The European automat dining experience is slowly invading the States, as evidenced by San Francisco’s very own Eatsa, which opened earlier this year in the city’s FiDi neighborhood. Now the second iteration is breaching the Los Angeles market at The Village at Westfield Topanga next month.

The concept — a fully automated, waiter-less dining experience where you punch in your order and then grab it from a box on the wall when ready — has some traction overseas but hasn't been around in America much. It’s more novelty than anything at the moment, but by serving simple grain bowls easily and quickly, the idea is that on-the-go folks will eventually take to the notion and start relying on Eatsa for cheap, easy (and healthy) meals. It’s a process that, in theory, works well for all parties involved.

Apparently people are digging the S.F. version, with long lines debuting the space in August and food that is being billed by most folks as ‘surprisingly good’. There’s also this conversation point about the rise of tech in the service side of the food industry, and how options like Eatsa are solving some problems (while possibly creating others, like the loss of even more middle-class workers).

Eatsa at The Village at Westfield Topanga opens in December for breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week.