By Charlie Pogacar
Nipun Sharma was in Concourse B at the airport in Columbus, Ohio, just days after Donatos Pizza had launched its first fully-autonomous location. Sharma—who is the CEO of Appetronix, the robotics brand behind the machine—and one of his fellow engineers noticed something strange.
A woman, on the phone, backpack slung over one shoulder, strolled past him. Without missing a beat in her conversation, she opened a food locker compartment, grabbed a fresh Donatos pizza and walked away. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t gawk at the new technology. To Sharma and the rest of his team behind the groundbreaking technology, there could be no purer form of validation.
“It was like she’d been doing it her entire life,” Sharma said. “I’m like, man, you just bought something that’s never been done before in human civilization! And you didn’t even blink an eye! And we were all just looking at each other like… this is awesome.
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In June 2025, Donatos Pizza debuted the first fully autonomous, robot-operated location in the U.S., right in front of Concourse B at the Columbus airport. A collaboration between Donatos, Appetronix and Agápe Automation—and operated by HMS Host—the concept aims to offer fast, high-quality, made-to-order pizza 24/7—without a single human hand touching the pie.
A Bold Bet, Realized
It would be unfair to say the unflinching woman picking up her pizza was the most common response to the new pizza-making machine. There were plenty of passersby who stopped to take in the revolutionary robot—the machine is equipped with windows where pedestrians can get a look behind the scenes.
But if reactions ranged from nonplussed to wowed, nearly all of them were positive. And Sharma and his team were not the only ones feeling emboldened by the response to the new machine. Kevin King, CEO of Donatos, was downright thrilled with the machine’s debut and the consumer response to it.
“We had been anticipating the opening of this location all year and it’s incredibly rewarding to see it come to life,” King told PMQ via email. “The industry and public response so far has exceeded our expectations.”
In the high-traffic environment of an airport—where speed and reliability are paramount—the robotic pizzeria has delivered. According to Sharma, the robot-made pizzas have not only matched the quality of some traditional Donatos locations, but they’ve perhaps exceeded them.
“People compared the robot pizzas to the ones from the stores, and the robot pizzas were deemed universally superior,” Sharma said. “The AI doesn’t make mistakes. And if it does, it rejects the pizza.”
The system uses sensors and data science to measure every ingredient within 1% variability. Consumers can order ahead of time and come pick up their pizza in a heated locker. The formula has been a consistent one—and one that’s churning out quality pizzas. In Sharma’s mind, that’s the whole point of the endeavor.
“You don’t want a machine that’s just reheating frozen pizzas,” Sharma said. “We’re serving restaurant-quality food.”
Designed for the Environment
It’s worth noting that the new Donatos is located on the civilian side of TSA’s security screening. That was intentional, Sharma explained, and it’s another area where their gameplan was proven prescient.
“We wanted to make it easier for media, engineers and investors to access the unit without requiring TSA clearance,” he said. “Plus, this gave us great exposure to airport staff.”
That exposure has turned into a dedicated user base. From hotel clerks to flight attendants, airport workers with short breaks have flocked to the machine. It’s turned out to be the ultimate way for folks on the go to grab a hot meal. Sharma also noted that the machine has seen higher-than-expected orders after midnight—when most other eateries in the airport have shut down.
“We kept hearing from people, ‘Now I can actually eat on my 20-minute break,'” Sharma said. “They pre-order, pick it up and now they actually have time to enjoy it.”
King and his team at Donatos have been ecstatic with that part of the public response, too. The machine has helped Donatos grow its footprint without having to hire a single new team member.
“Both Donatos Pizza fans and airport travelers are showing up and placing orders, and the demand is right at what we anticipated,” King added.
The Most Exciting Thing
Getting to this moment was anything but easy. The machine had to be shipped from Canada, reassembled on-site after midnight and installed behind a temporary wall. Teams from multiple organizations worked in a coordinated relay: electricians, airport architects, vinyl applicators and robot engineers. As a result, the location’s debut was pushed back a couple different times.
“It was like a space shuttle launch,” Sharma joked. “We had a deadline to hit or the media launch got pushed back. At 3 p.m. the Friday before [it did end up launching], we gave the go-ahead.”
For Sharma and his team, it was a dream many years in the making. Sharma had never set out to be a tech CEO in the first place. He is, at his heart, a restaurant operator. When he began seeing massive labor problems at his restaurants, he began exploring the automation that was out there. None of it made sense to him. “I was quite bewildered as to what they actually did,” Sharma said of the automation at the time, “and what problem they were solving for. [The machines] certainly had no room in my universe.”
This ultimately led Sharma to found SJW Robotics—the company that has since been renamed Appetronix. They went to work on building robotics that didn’t just fill a gap in the kitchen, but rather created a fully autonomous location that served restaurant quality food. To finally see the machine in action—and to be blown away by the reviews of the food and technology—was as thrilling a feeling as Sharma could remember in his career.
“We weren’t doing this to become a startup,” Sharma said. “We did it because it was the hardest, most exciting thing we could imagine.”
Eyes on Expansion
King is clear that this is just the beginning for Donatos. “We are now focused on making the automated pizza restaurant even more reliable, compact and adaptable—and eventually scaling it into places like schools, hospitals, airports, and event venues,” he said.
Sharma shares that vision. With future versions already in development, Appetronix plans to expand into Asian rice bowl concepts and burrito bowls, with the same commitment to quality and automation. A beverage dispenser is also in the works for the pizza units, addressing the unique needs of airport travelers.
“We want to go where there’s a captive audience and a labor challenge,” Sharma said. “Hospitals, malls, theme parks, even EV charging stations.”
Though their contract details remain private, Sharma confirmed that Donatos is their exclusive pizza partner for the foreseeable future. “This is our partner,” he said. “And it’s my mission to help make Donatos the most powerful pizza brand in the world.”
Now, with a working prototype in public and sales data rolling in, skepticism is giving way to curiosity—and excitement. “This was about delivering on the promise,” Sharma said. “If we couldn’t make food that honored Donatos’ legacy, we wouldn’t do it. But we did. And it tastes great.”
