Project Profile: White Castle
restaurant development + design magazine
“The Castle of Tomorrow.”
It’s a lofty description for the new design of a 100-year-old burger chain. How “tomorrow” could a place that sells sliders get, after all?
This new prototype from Ohio-based White Castle earns the description, though.
While other concepts tinker with elements like AI ordering and kitchen robotics, the Castle of Tomorrow makes White Castle one of the first legacy brands to truly integrate these elements into its design.
“White Castle is one of the leaders in test-and-learn and fail-and-iterate in the areas of AI and robotics,” says Rob Seely, associate vice president of operations, strategy and design for WD Partners. “They’ve been doing that for quite a while, and they got to the point where they felt comfortable with the idea of developing a prototype that truly integrated these things, rather than just continuing to add them on to existing locations.”
Based outside of Columbus, Ohio, just a short drive from the White Castle headquarters, WD Partners was involved in all aspects of this prototype’s creation, including strategy, kitchen design, interior design and technology integration.
