Alumnus-Founded NapSpin Aims To Reshape Restaurant Work
Mike Foley, E’17, mechanical engineering, developed and launched the startup NapSpin, which produces machines that automate rolling silverware into napkins. Now with support from Northeastern’s GAP fund, Foley hopes to expand beyond the restaurant market to hospitals, hotels, and cruise ships.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Tanner Stening. Main photo: Northeastern graduate Mike Foley owns a patent on a machine that could soon give restaurant workers a break from the monotony of rolling napkins. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University.
He invented a machine that rolls silverware into napkins. It could be a game-changer for restaurants
Mike Foley is on a roll.
A 2017 Northeastern University graduate, Foley has worked a lot of jobs. He worked at car manufacturing plants and blood testing facilities. There was a stint designing knee replacements, and one designing boats. “I have a pretty diverse resume,” he says.
Then, roughly three years after graduating—during the first “COVID Christmas”—a conversation with his brother, who works in the restaurant business, gave him an idea that set him down a new path. It would test his skills as a mechanical engineer and, perhaps more importantly, open up new horizons into a world of business and entrepreneurship.
And that idea—a machine that can roll silverware into napkins—could soon give restaurant workers a break from the monotony of rolling napkins, a form of side work familiar to waitstaff often seen as a huge chore.
“My brother told me, ‘I wish there was a machine that could do rollups,’” Foley told Northeastern Global News, recalling that Christmas evening conversation. “Often restaurant workers have to do this at the end of the night, when they either want to go out with their friends or go home to their families.”
Foley fashioned a pretend certificate that he gave to his brother that Christmas, promising to devote a week’s worth of mechanical engineering know-how to the cause.
Northeastern graduate Mike Foley at his workstation, located at the Artisan’s Asylum in Allston, Massachusetts. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
“I had gotten a really great degree from Northeastern, and I was really confident in my skills as a mechanical engineer,” Foley says.
In some ways, what followed is a classic startup story. Living in a cramped North End apartment, Foley worked on his idea—at first part time. He removed the rod from his closet, transforming it into a sitting and standing workspace. He moved his bed to the center of the room, and hung all of his tools on it.
With 3-D printers whirring, he tested different concepts and prototypes—some showing promise. “I thought this actually doesn’t seem too difficult in terms of the complexity and the concepts I was coming up with,” he says.
He reached out to local restaurants to see if they would be interested in a machine that did what he envisioned (they said they definitely were), going as far as cold calling potential customers.
After a year or so of testing, Foley had a workable prototype: a set-it-and-forget-it type device that uses clever engineering to do the magic. The machine is about the size of a mini fridge, if turned onto its side; the user need only place the silverware in one tray, and the napkins in another, then specify how many rollups they want.
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