When you order a salad at Sweetgreen at some point in the future, it might roll off a conveyor belt after a robot kitchen puts it together. The company is buying Spyce, an automated kitchen startup. The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks. Sweetgreen is figuring out when and how to incorporate Spyce's tech at its more than 130 locations, but the overall goals are to improve food quality and consistency, and to make operations more efficient. All going well, Sweetgreen employees will spend more time on preparation and hospitality.

Finally, the ultimate kitchen gadget you never knew you wanted is here – but it will cost you about the same as the average UK house. For those stumped as to what to buy the super-rich person in their lives this Christmas, how about a fully robotic kitchen that promises to whip up a choice of up to 5,000 recipes at the press of a button? A London-based robotics company on Sunday unveiled the world's first robot kitchen, which it promises "cooks from scratch and even cleans up afterwards without complaint". The Moley Kitchen robot, brainchild of Russian mathematician and computer scientist Mark Oleynik, promises to make restaurant standard meals without its owner having to lift a finger or order a takeaway. It's not cheap though: the robot costs a minimum of £248,000, roughly the same as the average UK house.

Spyce is the perfect restaurant for an introvert. From placing an order on one of the sleek iPads that line the restaurant's right wall to watching spinning woks dump fresh ingredients into bowls, little human interaction is required. Except for perhaps raising your hand when your name is called and the food is ready. The new "robot kitchen" at 241 Washington St. in Boston's Downtown Crossing uses technology to maximize cooking safety. With an eye toward the future of the restaurant industry, four MIT graduate students cooked up the idea in the basement of their fraternity in 2015.