‘Automated’ grocery store planned at South Clinton site
Rodney King is working to complete construction and installation of equipment for his new automated grocery store at 810 Clinch Ave., called “Autobotit.” Customers will place orders from their phones, and get the food and sundries delivered to kiosks in the front of the building — all through automation, with no human touch. (photo:G Chambers Williams III )
Called “Autobotit,” the new store will offer no-contact shopping for basic food and sundry items — such as those found in a Dollar General or convenience store — using state-of-the-art robotics equipment designed and built by the owner, former Oak Ridge science teacher Rodney King.
Orders will be made on a phone app, and picked up from one of two kiosks outside the front of the building, at 810 Clinch Ave., after being organized and readied for delivery completely by automation, King said.
“Nobody goes inside the store,” said King, who has been working on the project since obtaining a building permit for it from the city of Clinton in March 2022.
“It’s perfect, say for a woman with her hair in curlers and a baby in the back seat,” he said. “Order on your phone, and show up here, and the automation equipment delivers it to you, ready to go. Nothing is touched by human hands during the process.
“We will even have refrigerated items,” such as milk, “but no frozen foods, at least at first,” King said.
Autobotit is a start-up business conceived by King during the time he was an eighth-grade science teacher in Oak Ridge.
“I taught science for 16 years, and was involved in the middle school robotics program,” King said. “Our robotics team won the state title twice, and went to world competition three times.
“I thought of this while doing the robotics thing,” he said. “It seems like the time has come for contactless delivery [of groceries].”
Of course, humans will have to keep the store stocked, but “once the goods are stocked, they won’t be touched by human hands again until after the customer gets them,” he said.
What pushed King over the line to begin working on his new store, he said, was a trip to a local fast-food restaurant, where the store employee messed up his order three times.
“I got mad at the kid at Hardee’s and told him he could be replaced [by a machine],” King said.
His electrical-engineer son is helping him with the automation, and his lawyer son is helping him with applying for patents on the equipment, King said.
“We will keep the process secret until we get the patents in place,” he added.
He said he hopes to have the business open “by the first of the year.”
The site was once a TV repair shop. King put up a new, small building on the lot to house his store, but he said it will have to remain a drive-up operation rather than a drive-through, because he doesn’t have room for a drive-through lane.
King, who was born in Jefferson City, grew up in East Tennessee, he said, adding that his father worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
“I was in the Navy, serving on submarines, and then I went into teaching when I got out,” he said.
He is also a farmer.