Travelers passing through Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers are getting a first taste of what could be the future of airport dining. White Castle, the century old burger chain known for its small, square sliders and cult following of Cravers, has installed a fully automated kiosk in the airport’s revamped food court. The compact unit serves hot sliders on demand with no staff on site, signaling how automation is reshaping what it means to grab a quick bite between flights.
A New Kind of Terminal Treat at RSW
The new White Castle kiosk at Southwest Florida International Airport, often referred to by its airport code RSW, quietly began serving passengers in February 2026. Positioned within the airport’s renovated terminal food court, the machine sized unit looks at first glance like an oversized vending machine. Closer inspection reveals a full branded White Castle experience, complete with digital ordering screens, a warming system and a menu of the chain’s most recognizable sliders.
Instead of a line at a counter, travelers tap through a touchscreen, pay electronically and wait while the kiosk finishes heating and dispensing their selections. The sliders are stocked inside in frozen or chilled form and then brought up to serving temperature in the machine, allowing the kiosk to operate without on site kitchen staff. The goal is a hot meal ready in roughly the time it takes to refill a water bottle or check a gate assignment.
Airport officials have been rethinking how food is provided in the terminal as passenger volumes recover and staffing remains tight across food service operations. The White Castle installation is part of a broader shift toward smaller, more flexible outlets that can offer recognizable brands in a compact footprint. For many travelers, it also marks the first time they have been able to order White Castle sliders anywhere in Southwest Florida.
How the Automated Slider Kiosk Works
The RSW kiosk is a self contained, fully automated system that blends vending technology with hot food preparation. Behind its glass front is a refrigerated storage area loaded with individually packaged White Castle retail sliders. When a customer selects an item, a robotic mechanism retrieves the package and moves it to an internal heating chamber that quickly brings the sliders to serving temperature.
The menu at Southwest Florida International Airport mirrors the offerings White Castle has been rolling out at its other automated locations. Passengers can choose from the Original Slider made with 100 percent beef, the Classic Cheese Slider, the Cheddar Bacon Cheese Slider and the Chicken and Cheese Slider. Each order is delivered in a branded box or sleeve, ready to eat on the spot or take to the gate for later.
Touchscreen prompts guide travelers through the ordering process in seconds. The interface is designed for speed and simplicity, minimizing the number of taps required to complete a transaction. Payment is cashless, with support for credit and debit cards as well as mobile wallets. Once the order is placed, the on screen countdown and interior lighting give customers a visual sense of progress until a door unlocks and the finished sliders can be retrieved.
Because the system does not rely on an on site cook, it can operate for extended hours with only periodic restocking and maintenance visits. That makes it well suited to early morning departures and late night arrivals when traditional concessions often have limited hours or are closed entirely. For RSW, the kiosk provides a way to offer a hot, recognizable meal option without the overhead of staffing a full restaurant around the clock.
The Partnership Powering White Castle’s Airport Push
The Fort Myers kiosk is the latest result of a collaboration between White Castle and a group of technology and operations partners focused on automated dining. The machine itself is part of the Just Baked platform, an automated food kiosk concept designed to deliver hot, ready to eat items from recognizable brands in nontraditional locations. White Castle provides the branded recipes, packaging and retail product, while Just Baked supplies the hardware and software that make the unattended service possible.
On the ground at airports and other travel hubs, Evolvending handles day to day operations and logistics. The company specializes in placing and managing automated dining units in high traffic environments, from product stocking and quality checks to cleaning and basic servicing. At RSW, Evolvending’s role is to ensure that slider inventory is rotated properly, the kiosk remains spotless and all mechanical systems are functioning smoothly despite heavy use during peak travel periods.
For White Castle, this trio of partners has created a way to extend the brand into airports without building full restaurants. Instead of investing in a traditional kitchen, front of house and staffing model, the company can deploy a kiosk in a relatively small space and rely on automation to handle the bulk of food preparation. It is a leaner, more flexible approach that can be replicated at other airports and transit centers with comparatively modest upfront costs.
The successful operation of earlier automated projects laid the groundwork for the Fort Myers launch. In recent years White Castle has invested in robotics in its own restaurants, testing an automated fry station robot nicknamed Flippy and experimenting with robot assisted delivery in select markets. Lessons from those initiatives have informed how the company works with technology providers to ensure consistent quality and safety when food is prepared in automated systems outside the traditional kitchen environment.
From Logan to Fort Myers: A Growing Network of Automated Castles
Southwest Florida International Airport is not the first airport to host an automated White Castle kiosk. The chain’s initial high profile airport deployment arrived at Boston Logan International Airport in late 2025, where a similar unit began dispensing hot sliders in the Terminal A satellite concourse. There, as in Fort Myers, passengers welcomed the novelty of seeing a fully branded White Castle experience packed into a machine rather than a full scale restaurant.
The Boston launch gave White Castle and its partners a real world test of how the technology performed in a busy terminal environment. It also allowed them to refine everything from signage and instructions to stocking schedules and service intervals. Early feedback from Boston informed the rollout at RSW, helping fine tune details such as menu presentation, pricing communication and how the kiosk fits into the overall layout of the terminal food offerings.
With both Boston and Fort Myers now in operation, White Castle is establishing a small but growing network of airports where Cravers can find sliders even if there are no traditional restaurants nearby. For the brand, airports are an appealing proving ground. They bring a steady flow of diverse travelers through a confined space, create predictable peaks tied to flight banks and reward concepts that minimize wait times and friction.
Company leaders have signaled that they view these locations as part of a larger expansion of automated points of sale in transportation hubs and other high traffic venues. As airports look to diversify their dining mix and provide recognizable brands in compact, flexible formats, White Castle’s kiosk concept offers a way to add a familiar name without needing the space and staffing associated with a full restaurant.
Why Airports Are Embracing Automated Dining
The installation of a White Castle kiosk at Southwest Florida International Airport reflects broader trends shaping airport concessions worldwide. Travelers have grown more demanding about what they eat on the go, expecting better quality and more recognizable brands even when they have only a few minutes between flights. At the same time, the labor market for hospitality jobs has tightened, and operators have been searching for ways to offer more with fewer people on the payroll.
Automated kiosks offer one answer to that challenge. Because they can operate with limited human oversight, they allow airports and concessionaires to extend food service hours without simply hiring more staff. The machines occupy far less space than a full kitchen and seating area, which is particularly important in terminals that are already constrained and expensive to expand. For airports like RSW that serve a mix of business travelers, leisure visitors and seasonal residents, a compact unit can plug into almost any corner of the terminal.
Speed is another critical factor. In crowded terminals, passengers often bypass sit down options because they worry about missing boarding. Automated kiosks are designed to deliver food in a tight time window, often a couple of minutes or less, which fits naturally into pre boarding routines. The White Castle kiosk’s promise of hot sliders on demand aligns with that need for speed while retaining the sense of a real meal rather than a packaged snack from a traditional vending machine.
For airport authorities, these systems also represent a way to keep dining options available during redevelopment and renovation work. RSW’s food court is in the midst of a transition toward a more vending focused model, using automated solutions to maintain or even broaden choice while long term plans for permanent outlets evolve. If a kiosk performs well, it can become a permanent fixture; if not, it can be relocated or replaced with relative ease compared with traditional buildouts.
What Travelers Can Expect When They Visit
For travelers curious about trying the new White Castle experience at Southwest Florida International Airport, the process is intentionally straightforward. After spotting the Blue and white kiosk in the terminal food court, guests approach the touchscreen and are greeted with large images of each available slider. The system prompts them to choose quantities, confirm their order and then tap to pay using a card or digital wallet.
Once payment is confirmed, the kiosk begins the heating cycle for the selected items. Passengers can watch a progress bar on the screen or simply wait nearby until they hear an audible signal and see a door unlock, revealing their boxed sliders inside. The total time from order to pickup is designed to be short enough that even passengers on a quick connection can comfortably fit it into their schedule, especially if they are already near their departure gate.
Because the sliders are based on the same recipes used in White Castle restaurants and packaged retail products, guests can expect a familiar taste. The onions, soft buns and signature square patties are intended to mirror the experience fans know from traditional locations. For first time guests who may have only heard about White Castle through pop culture references or friends who are Cravers, the kiosk offers an easy way to sample the brand without seeking out a standalone restaurant.
While seating options in the immediate vicinity of the kiosk depend on the layout of the food court and concourse, many passengers opt to carry their sliders back to the gate area. The compact size of the sliders and their packaging makes them easy to eat while watching the departure board or waiting in line to board. For families, being able to quickly purchase a variety of sliders can also simplify feeding children between flights when time is limited.
What This Means for the Future of Airport Food
The arrival of an automated White Castle kiosk at Southwest Florida International Airport is more than a novelty. It hints at how airport food service could evolve over the next decade, blending automation with recognizable brands to build a more flexible and resilient dining ecosystem. As operators gain confidence that machines can deliver consistent quality and reliability, it is likely that airports will experiment with a broader range of automated concepts across cuisines and price points.
For travelers, the change may be less about the technology itself and more about the experience. If kiosks like White Castle’s can reliably serve hot, tasty sliders at almost any hour, the expectation for what counts as acceptable food during early morning or late night travel will shift. Passengers may come to assume that a recognizable hot meal is only a short walk and a few taps away, even in terminals where many traditional concessions are closed.
At the same time, automation raises questions about how human staffed restaurants will differentiate themselves in an environment where machines cover the basics efficiently. Full service outlets may focus more on unique menus, local flavors and hospitality, while automated kiosks handle quick, standardized offerings. Airports could end up with a more varied mix overall, pairing high touch dining experiences with high tech convenience solutions.
For now, the White Castle kiosk at RSW serves as a visible marker of that transition. It brings an iconic American burger brand to a new corner of the country and wraps it in cutting edge vending technology tailored to the rhythms of modern air travel. For weary passengers navigating tight connections or long security lines, it may also offer something more immediate and tangible, the comfort of a hot slider delivered in moments at the press of a button.