By Lea Mira, RTN staff writer - 8.24.2026
California Pizza Kitchen is preparing to make one of the restaurant industry’s largest bets yet on automated foodservice, with plans to deploy as many as 1,000 branded kiosks across the United States over the next three years. If the rollout approaches that scale, the machines could give CPK a substantial new distribution network without requiring anything resembling the real estate, staffing or investment associated with opening hundreds of conventional restaurants.
The casual-dining chain has entered into a partnership with T-ROC Global to deploy and operate the machines in airports, universities, hospitals, hotels, office complexes, residential communities, EV charging stations, sports venues and other high-traffic destinations. The rollout will initially focus on clusters of at least 20 machines across approximately 30 major U.S. markets, giving the companies greater density for replenishment, maintenance and other field operations as the network expands.
The touchscreen kiosks use TurboChef cooking equipment and other technology to prepare a seven-inch CPK pizza in about 90 seconds. CPK and T-ROC also plan to offer Kung Pao and Bolognese Spaghetti, Mac ‘N’ Cheese in several varieties and the chain’s signature Butter Cake, making the concept more expansive than a traditional pizza vending machine.
The agreement significantly expands an automated retail strategy CPK began testing last year. Machines are already operating at Boston Logan International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Dallas Love Field and Dayton International Airport, and another 15 are expected to be activated at several universities by the end of 2026.
What makes the initiative especially notable is that CPK is not simply using kiosks to automate ordering inside existing restaurants. These machines are designed as standalone foodservice locations, allowing the company to put its brand and menu into places where opening and staffing a traditional California Pizza Kitchen would be impractical.
That represents a potentially important evolution in restaurant automation. Much of the industry’s technology investment over the past decade has focused on making existing restaurants more efficient through self-ordering kiosks, mobile ordering, automated kitchens, AI-powered drive-thrus and other labor-saving technologies, while the CPK model uses automation to create an entirely new point of distribution.
The approach is particularly well suited to a company such as CPK because the brand already has decades of experience selling frozen versions of its restaurant products through grocery stores. That experience should make it easier to develop products that can be transported, stored and prepared consistently in an unattended environment compared with restaurant concepts whose menus depend heavily on preparation from fresh ingredients.
CPK also appears to have spent considerable time refining the cooking process. The company evaluated 27 commercial oven manufacturers before choosing TurboChef and moved away from an earlier refrigerated system, which had greater spoilage risk and required roughly three minutes to prepare a pizza, in favor of frozen products that can be stored longer and cooked more quickly.
The cooking technology, however, may ultimately be the simpler part of the equation. Operating hundreds of unattended food locations requires reliable replenishment, equipment maintenance, warehousing, inventory management and rapid response when something breaks, all of which become increasingly difficult as machines are distributed across large geographic areas.
That is where T-ROC could provide one of the most important pieces of CPK’s strategy. The company plans to use a nationwide infrastructure that includes 32 warehouses, a dedicated van fleet and thousands of technicians to deploy, replenish, maintain and support the machines, while also providing services such as warehousing, logistics, technology and inventory management and ongoing field operations.
T-ROC will also serve as the nationwide service provider for CPK’s other automated retail operating partners, extending its role beyond the kiosks it operates directly. That arrangement could help CPK avoid building its own large field-service organization while giving the company a more standardized operating structure as the automated retail business grows.
The decision to concentrate machines in geographic clusters also makes operational sense. A warehouse, delivery vehicle and service technician supporting 20 or more kiosks in the same metropolitan market should be able to operate much more efficiently than a network of isolated machines spread across the country, potentially improving the economics as the system scales.
CPK is not alone in pursuing this model. As Restaurant Technology News reported earlier this year, White Castle has partnered with Automated Retail Technologies to expand its Crave & Go hot-food kiosk network, with the companies saying their national rollout will start with 1,000 locations.
The similarities between the CPK and White Castle strategies are striking. Both are established restaurant brands with substantial frozen-food businesses, both have menu items that can be centrally produced and finished automatically, and both are targeting campuses, healthcare facilities, workplaces, transportation hubs and other locations where opening a conventional restaurant may not make financial sense.
White Castle’s partner, Automated Retail Technologies, already has significant experience operating in these environments. The company has deployed more than 850 robotic foodservice kiosks through relationships that include major foodservice companies such as Aramark, Sodexo and Compass, giving it access to many of the institutional locations that automated restaurant brands are increasingly targeting.
PizzaForno represents another version of the same opportunity. Its Powered by PFX white-label platform allows pizzerias and other foodservice brands to place their own recipes, branding and pricing into automated pizza kiosks rather than requiring operators to adopt the PizzaForno consumer brand.
PizzaForno says the underlying technology has more than 3,000 units deployed worldwide, and its white-label machines require only about 50 to 80 square feet while operating without onsite staff. The company currently lists equipment costs between approximately $85,000 and $109,000, providing some perspective on the capital requirements for restaurant operators interested in owning their own automated pizza locations.
The CPK-T-ROC arrangement takes a different approach by pairing the restaurant brand with a national operator capable of handling much of the physical infrastructure and day-to-day operation of the network. That could prove important because the competitive advantage in automated foodservice may ultimately depend as much on keeping machines stocked and functioning as it does on the technology used to cook the food.
Farmer’s Fridge provides perhaps the clearest evidence that unattended foodservice can reach significant scale when those operational pieces work. The company now operates more than 2,000 smart Fridges nationwide in airports, hospitals, universities, offices and other locations, many of which overlap directly with the environments CPK is targeting.
Farmer’s Fridge also illustrates how the technology behind an unattended food network extends far beyond the customer-facing machine. Its Fridges monitor temperatures every five minutes and automatically stop vending if safe temperatures are not maintained, while a proprietary stocking algorithm is used to determine which products should be delivered to individual locations and help reduce waste.
For CPK, the potential economics are easy to understand even though the companies have not disclosed machine costs, revenue-sharing arrangements or expected sales per location. A kiosk requires far less space than a restaurant, needs little or no staff at the point of sale, can operate for extended hours and can potentially be moved if a particular location fails to generate sufficient demand.
There is already some evidence that the machines can generate meaningful volume in the right environment. CPK Global President Michael Beacham told Fast Company that the machine at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport can sell roughly 140 pizzas on a busy day, although airport traffic is unusually high and those results should not be assumed for hospitals, universities, hotels or other locations.
The companies have also deliberately described the program as involving “up to” 1,000 machines, rather than committing to install all of them regardless of performance. That leaves CPK and T-ROC room to expand quickly where sales justify additional units while slowing deployment or relocating machines in markets where the economics are less attractive.
The initiative comes at an important point for CPK. The chain’s restaurant count has declined steadily in recent years, falling from 167 locations in 2021 to 121 at the beginning of 2026, according to franchise disclosure documents cited by Restaurant Dive, even as the company has pursued franchising and other avenues for growth.
CPK was acquired late last year by an investor group led by Consortium Brand Partners and including Eldridge Industries, Aurify Brands and Bain Capital Credit, with Convive Brands taking a major operating role in the business. The new ownership has identified restaurant franchising and expansion of CPK’s consumer-products business among the opportunities for growing the brand, making automated retail a logical additional distribution channel.
The biggest risk may ultimately be less about whether the machines work than whether consumers believe the food they produce delivers an experience consistent with the CPK name. A restaurant brand extending itself into hundreds of unattended locations has to maintain food quality and equipment uptime because a poorly prepared pizza or an out-of-service kiosk still reflects directly on the brand.
Competition for the best locations could also intensify quickly. CPK will be competing not only against automated pizza concepts, but also against restaurant brands such as White Castle, smart-fridge operators such as Farmer’s Fridge, automated foodservice technology providers and contract foodservice companies that already have relationships with airports, hospitals, universities and corporate campuses.
Still, the emergence of large-scale programs from both CPK and White Castle within a matter of months suggests automated retail is moving beyond the novelty stage. The more significant development may be a shift in how restaurant companies think about automation, from using technology primarily to reduce friction and labor inside existing restaurants to using it to create entirely new places where their food can be sold.
For California Pizza Kitchen, that is what makes the proposed 1,000-machine network worth watching. If CPK and T-ROC can make the economics, logistics and customer experience work at scale, the automated kiosk could evolve from an alternative vending channel into a legitimate new restaurant format, allowing the brand to reach far more consumers without building hundreds of traditional locations.
