The Boss Went Fine Dining… Macanda Was a Different Animal

We’ve now put the CleanBoss C40 through some very different environments.

Schools. Apartment buildings. Casinos. Large facilities. Long hallways that make the Boss look like it was born for the job.

But Macanda was different.

Macanda is a beautiful restaurant right on Lake Minnetonka in Wayzata, combining Latin American flavors with Japanese cuisine. Sushi, tacos, specialty rolls, cocktails, and even its own HiFi vinyl lounge.

It is also one of my favorite restaurants, which meant there was a little extra pressure not to send a robot through a table during the demo.

No pressure, right?

The opportunity came through Aaron, who owns seven different restaurant concepts, including Macanda, Josefina, and Yumi. Aaron is a really cool guy, a great entrepreneur, and someone you can have a genuinely good conversation with. You can tell he is always thinking about how to improve operations, create a better experience, and build something bigger.

That made this demo especially interesting.

When Mark and I looked at the layout, I’ll be honest—we were both a little nervous.

There were some longer stretched but narrow areas that looked perfect for the C40, but there were also a lot of tight tables, narrow areas, a bar to navigate around, and furniture that could move depending on the day.

This was not an empty warehouse.

This was not a wide-open school hallway.

This was a real restaurant with a lot going on.

And that was exactly why we wanted to test it.

We already knew the C40 could handle larger, more open environments. What we didn’t fully know was how well it could perform in a tighter restaurant layout with constantly changing variables.

The answer?

Much better than we anticipated.

The Boss handled the longer sections easily, worked through several tighter areas, and showed us that it could cover a meaningful amount of the restaurant without needing the entire building cleared out like an airport runway.

Was every inch of the restaurant suddenly easy?

Of course not.

Tables move. Chairs move. Restaurants change every night. We still have to think carefully about routes, no-go zones, and which areas make the most operational sense.

But that is what made this demo valuable.

It gave us another completely different proof of concept.

The C40 does not have to be limited to giant facilities or endless hallways. With the right mapping, the right routes, and the right expectations, it can also perform in tighter hospitality environments where there is much more going on.

And that opens up a lot of possibilities.

Aaron was especially interested in the workstation, which allows the robot to automatically refill its clean water and dump the dirty water. That is where the setup starts becoming much more autonomous and valuable for a restaurant operation.

We’re currently waiting on a few measurements so we can determine the best location and make sure everything fits correctly. Once that is handled, we can return, connect the workstation, tighten up the routes, and really dial the entire system in.

That is the part people sometimes miss.

We do not just drop off a robot, point toward the floor, and hope for the best.

Every building is different. Every layout teaches us something. And every demo gives us another opportunity to prove what these robots can do when they are set up correctly.

Macanda definitely tested us.

Tight tables. Moving chairs. A bar. Changing layouts.

The Boss still showed up and handled business.

Now we just need to get the workstation connected, fine-tune everything, and possibly negotiate a Surf & Turf roll into the final agreement.

Seems fair to us.