Café X is one of the modern-day restaurant concepts that appeared on the market in January 2017. Café X opened its doors for business in San Francisco, California. This concept for automated coffee kiosks via the café X robot barista seemed like something from a sci-fi movie. The restaurant automation involved a self-service coffee kiosk and a fully mechanized coffee shop where giant white robotic arms make coffee for the coffee lovers.

Café X initially took the coffee world by storm when it launched an espresso bar with an automated self-service kiosk. This led many to wonder if the Café X robot barista was the beginning of the end of human baristas.

Fast forward to 2020, and the founder of Café X announced that it would be closing three of its locations in downtown San Francisco, leaving only 2 shops opened to serve the San Jose and San Francisco airports. So, what happened to the Café X robot barista that promised to revolutionize the coffee industry? Let us find out.

What happened to Café X?

It seems Café X has intentionally shifted its business model to operate in airports instead of a traditional location-by-location expansion through cities. According to Axios, the CEO of Café X, Henry Huang, told them that, “locations were running ‘prototype’ machines that were designed to help the company better understand customer behaviors.”

While Huang claims the locations were tests, some speculate the locations failed because humans just aren’t ready to be served by robots. In truth, the locations’ closings were likely a mix of both explanations.

Coffee Shop that Lacked Experience

While it appears that the coffee sold was of high quality, it was not enough to win customers over from traditional coffee shops. This may be because Café X arguably sells a product while traditional coffee shops sell an experience.

Reviews suggest that the actual coffee served at Café X was not the catalyst for closing stores. Café X sourced their beans from high-quality, third-wave coffee roasters like Ritual, Equator, and Intelligentsia. Thus, if ground and brewed properly, the coffee should have been good.

Pricing was also not an issue as a lack of labor costs allowed Café X to serve coffee comparatively cheaper than most San Francisco coffee shops. Customers also appreciated the ability to switch to alternative milk for free, as well as select specialty latte flavors like matcha and chai.

Many people enjoy talking with their baristas or asking them questions about what coffee to order. A coffee professional should be able to do a better job explaining the difference between filter coffee and espresso or the origins of a specific bean than a robot.

In addition, shops provide a community environment wherein many people like to study, read the newspaper, or catch up with friends. The Café X locations that had sitting areas are the ones that closed, meaning they are no longer able to offer this type of atmosphere.

Why Café X Coffee Kiosks Thrive in Airports

There is uncertainty surrounding the AI and automated coffee kiosk’s ability to create a human-driven interaction experience. However, the coffee businesses are inevitably adopting advanced self-service coffee kiosks soon.

The reason is the efficiency and transparency driven by AI and automation that can benefit all players. Instead of focusing on the element of losing human’s growing, roasting, and brewing your coffee beans, automation allows the coffee industry to improve its knowledge and skills to drive forward.

Café X may not be able to compete with traditional coffee shops in cities, but airports provide a perfect place for them to grow.

Most United States airports contain little to no coffee options for people searching for a drink that isn’t from Starbucks. As a result, the quality of coffee served at the airport is lower than in a city like San Francisco.

Therefore, assuming the coffee from Café X is as good as reviews suggest, it will be a premium option among airport coffee shops. In addition, airports render many of the pros of traditional coffee shops worthless as customers would rather sit at their gate than in a shop.

Without the need to create a holistic coffee experience, Café X should be able to easily become a premium airport option to offer high-quality espresso drinks at an affordable price.

While it seems like Café X won’t be popping up on street corners anytime soon, this automated coffee business has seemingly found its niche. Furthermore, it still looks to be a promising player for the future of automated food service.

How will self-service coffee kiosks be used moving forward?

While there are numerous benefits that automated coffee kiosks have to offer, here are four major ones.

Consistency in Quality and Beverage Control

The variation in strength and flavor of coffee on every visit is one of the biggest challenges coffee shops face. Each human barista has their own style to brew a coffee, causing the difference in taste and strength. Self-service coffee kiosks allow the coffee shops to offer consistent quality and flavor every time.
Thus, self-service coffee kiosks have the ability to reproduce the same beverage quality and taste with every serving. Your customers will never complain about milk froth, the quantity of espresso shot, or too much sweet syrup. Precision is what a self-serve coffee kiosk promises.

Avoiding Queues, Sweat, and Welter

The automated coffee kiosk with automated checkout software will eliminate human errors during rush hours. There are no more messing up the orders, confusing names, quantities, ingredients, etc. Human baristas get tired as they serve for long hours. However, an automated coffee kiosk will continue to serve tirelessly while you can use your human staff for other productive tasks.
We may even witness 24/7 coffee shops operating in areas such as airports, industrial areas, and tourist spots.

Valuable Insight into Customer’s Behavior and Preferences

It is practically impossible for a human barista to remember every customer’s request during their last visit. However, an automated coffee kiosk will learn from customers’ buying preferences and remember these details the next time a customer places an order.
It will also enable your coffee shop’s self-service coffee kiosk to recommend other items for upselling based on the customer’s previous history. So, it is safe to say that self-service coffee kiosks will certainly be a catalyst to increase your revenue.

Reducing Costs and Eliminating Staff Shortage

A java brewed by a self-service kiosk will cost your business a fraction of the price of a human made coffee. Plus, it will eliminate the need to hire human employees to serve and carry out other manual tasks such as collecting payment. Your business will benefit from this as you do not have to pay for social security, employees’ insurance, and paying labor compensation or sick leaves, etc.
Running a coffee shop with an automated coffee kiosk will only involve servicing costs. The high reliability of automated checkout software will keep this cost to minimal levels.

Self-Service Coffee Kiosk by GRUBBRR

If you are a coffee shop owner looking for an automated solution, GRUBBRR can help. We offer fully-automated coffee kiosk solutions, including automated checkout software and self-service coffee kiosks. Deploy this innovative technology and watch your business increase its efficiency, productivity, and revenue. Request a demo today at grubbrr.com