This new fast food restaurant is run entirely by machines

A new restaurant in San Francisco is powered by machines, Entrepreneur reports.

At Eatsa, customers order their food at kiosks and then receive their meals via high-tech machines.

The company posted a photo of a kiosk on Twitter before the restaurant's grand opening.

Some early customers have documented their experiences and have posted brief videos on Twitter:

 The company explains its mission statement on its website:

"Fresh and nutritious food doesn't have to cost a fortune or take forever to prepare," it reads. "At Eatsa, we've upped the taste factor alongside affordability and speed, with bold flavors, seasonal ingredients, and hearty portions. Our commitment to you is simple: faster, nutritious, more affordable and tastier food."

The menu is based around quinoa bowls, with prices starting around $6.95 - plausibly positioning Eatsa to be a competitor against fast casual stalwart Chipotle.

But what's most notable is Eatsa's lack of human cashiers or servers.

The absence of human employees is designed to make the serving process far more efficient - and perhaps even disrupt the fast casual industry (it is Silicon Valley, after all). 

Food is prepared in less than two minutes, Fast Company reports. (The site admits there is one lone human "concierge" who is available to help with troubleshooting.)

"We're using data science to drive the whole Eatsa experience," chief strategy officer and co-founder Scott Drummond said to Fast Company. "Cashiers won't be a limitation."

This concept isn't entirely new.

Years ago, automats - food vending machines - were widely used. 

Wikimedia Commons

An Automat in Berlin in 1897.

While the use of automats petered out over time, a restaurant called Bamn! revived the trend with some fanfare - albeit briefly - in the East Village in Manhattan in 2006. The restaurant shuttered in 2008, Eater NY reported.

While Eatsa is certainly more high tech than the old school automats, it remains to be determined if customers will enjoy - or detest - the lack of people involved in making transactions.

That said, it's no secret that automated machines are slowly but surely taking over jobs - including those of cashiers and cooks.