Who Needs Restaurants? CPK Bets On 1,000 Kiosks | Fast Five Shorts

CPK California Pizza Kitchen is partnering with T Rock Global to deploy up to 1,000 automated pizza kiosks nationwide over the next three years, expanding into airports, universities, hospitals, hotels and other high traffic non restaurant locations.

According to ChainStorage, the rollout will initially focus on clusters of at least 20 units across 30 major US markets, with T Rock leveraging its nationwide infrastructure including 32 warehouses, a dedicated Van Feet Van fleet, I should say not feet flat van fleet and thousands of technicians to deploy, replenish, maintain and support the machines.

The kiosk use TurboChef, yes, Turbo Chef Powered Cooking Joe touchscreen technology and data driven systems and can prepare a pizza in as little as 90 seconds.

CPK began testing automated retail in 2025 with machines already operating at airports including Boston, Logan Hartsfield, Jackson, Atlanta, Dallas, Love Field and Dayton international, and another 15 machines are set to activate at universities by the end of 2026.

Notably, this news also comes a few months after CPK was acquired by an ownership group consisting of Consortium Brand Partners, Elders Industries, R5 Brands and Convive Brands following the chain's 2020 bankruptcy filing.

Joe this is also the put you on the spot Question of the week.

The A and M put you on the spot question of the week.

Here it is.

California Pizza Kitchen has been declining in location count roughly 8% per year on average from 2021 through the end of 2025.

Is a format expansion like this likely to be successful as the brand overall contracts or is streamlining the value prop down to product sales speed and convenience exactly what the brand needs?

I think this is a good move.

I like this strategy on CPK's part.

It's maybe underappreciated that CPK also has a pretty strong CPG business.

Like they're available in frozen format in a whole bunch of grocery stores around the country.

CPK's president is actually going to be on stage at Grocery Shop in September talking about the CPG strategy and how it fits into the broader strategy.

I don't know if we'll be asking him about expansion of vending machines around the country, but I hope we do so.

I think this is a good move.

I think it comes down to strategy like where they locate these things and kind of what the other food options are in the vicinity, but I think about most of the airports I travel through I might actually like a Turbo Chef frozen pizza over the other things on offer.

So I think it kind of depends on if environment.

CPK has the advantage of a brand that all of us kind of are Familiar with like however much or little we have kind of nostalgia for it or love for it.

Depends.

But it's at least kind of known and dependable as opposed to like a brand new brand.

And I think that'll, that'll be helpful in these spaces where it's like, oh look, it's a kiosk.

I can get a fresh hot pizza instantaneously, almost instantaneously.

I, I think it's a good value proposition depending on where these things are located.

So all comes down to geography and placement and being real smart about that.

Yeah.

Two minutes for a pizza, Joe.

That's nuts.

Isn't.

Is?

I mean, I have long been a fan of the pizza robot that actually assembles the pizza kind of fresh.

And I do not think that is what this is.

I think these are probably pre made and flash frozen and flash reheated.

But still, I think again, kind of given a lot of the airports I've been through recently and the other options I've had for food, I think this will be appealing to at least some people.

I think so too.

I mean, I like this move.

You alluded to their CBG business.

I mean I used to run frozen food at Target and I can tell you.

Yeah, they used to do.

They do a dang good CBG business.

Yeah.

And so you know, the, the brand resonates with people.

People understand what their frozen pizza, to your point, Joe, essentially tastes like.

And you know, I think the other point about this, when I think when I step up and I look at 30,000 Foot View, the other questions I started asking, reading this headlines and preparing for today's show.

And Joe, I'm curious to get your take on this too.

The CPK in store experience isn't really anything to write home about, you know, particularly in an airport, which is where I was, where there's one in the Vegas airport, where I just was this weekend.

And in fact I would say that very few in restaurant pizza experiences are.

Which is why we don't have a national pizza place that we all love anymore.

Like the Hut is gone, Joe.

Right.

Nobody goes to Pizza Hut anymore.

Godfather's Round Table, those are virtually non existent because people, at the end of the day, they just want a quality pie.

They just want a quality pie that they can count on and come back to.

And so to your point, Joe, especially in an airport setting a quality pie in under two minutes.

Sign me up for that.

I'm worried the line's gonna be too long at the kiosk.

Honestly, once this word spreads on this and the other thing I wonder about too, Joe, if this tech is that slick, right.

Are we gonna see other brands follow suit and go in this direction?

Are there going to be lots of pizza kiosks all throughout the world?

Get it on your way out the door.

It only takes you two extra minutes.

That, I mean, I don't know, I don't think it's that crazy, but Joe, talk me off the ledge here.

Yeah, no, I think it's potentially a compelling offer.

Pizza has long been a convenience food in the sense of, to your point, like, it's not so much something people in most of the country go out for.

They get it delivered to them from Domino's or whoever.

And so kind of this kind of the shift to a kiosk based delivery method is just a small shift in venue, but kind of equal, if not more so, convenience.

And yeah, I think it comes down to like, keeping these things stocked, understanding kind of the demand patterns through the course of the day and kind of making sure that there's always pizza when somebody wants one.

To your point, like, I think maybe one of the, one of the biggest challenges they'll face is not too little demand for these things, but too much demand for them because you go to a couple of kiosks and they're sold out and then you kind of write them off and that would, that would obviously undermine the value of this initiative.

Yeah, or, yeah, or the line's too long.

Like you're waiting five people in front of you and it's gonna be 10 minutes before you get to the front of the line to place your Kia, play your.

I don't know how many at one time, too.

The article didn't say that, like, maybe it can.

You can prepare more than one pizza at one time.

Yeah, they'll put two side by side or something like that.

But.

But yeah, I do think kind of understanding likely demand or, or, you know, being fast to adapt to demand as it emerges is going to be key here.

It's a cool headline.

It's the last headline I picked this week, but I'm glad I did because it's also a good representation of a company willing to go out and disrupt itself potentially before somebody else does.