Steven Ramirez-Araujo’s club-worthy patterned shirt is stylistically at odds with his hairnet. He’s presiding over the Rheon KN551, the automated assembly line that powers his family’s churro business.
Imagine a cookie press or pasta extruder attached to a computer: The Rheon releases a star-shaped squirt of dough with the hypnotic steadiness of a soft-serve machine piling up chocolate-vanilla swirl. Then, a decisive snap. The machine trims these long ropes of uncooked churro into six-inch lengths—or whatever dimensions Ramirez-Araujo programs into the rudimentary control panel. A small conveyor belt ferries the churros onward to a sheet pan.
Steven Ramirez-Araujo poses with the churro machine that started it all.
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