image credit: Cirrus Wood / berkeleyside.com

We want our coffee, we want it now and we don’t want to pay too much. One new café in California is looking to fulfill those demands by use of robots.

Robots Bev and Jarvis Make Coffee at Bbox

The city of the Berkeley, California recently got their first robot café. Called Bbox, its located inside UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. It has everything a ‘normal’ café does including coffee, espresso, juices, and pastries.

You won’t be placing orders with a human as it’s a mobile-only cafe. Customers need to order via an app with their smartphone or on a tablet outside the café. The app will then tell them how long the order will take. No lines, no human interaction if you don’t want.

Once the order is placed, robots named Bev and Jarvis get to work. Bev (short for Beverage) is the barista of the pair. Using her robot arms, Bev selects the cup, pours and mixes the drinks from an assembly line of dispensers.

Once Bev is done with the drink she hands it off to Jarvis who places the drink for the customer to pick up. When the order is ready, the customer receives a pin via text which can be entered in one of the dispensers to retrieve their drink.

Robot Labor Helps Make Coffee Cheaper

The one thing that stands out about Bbox is the prices. A small latte costs $2.75 and you can get a croissant for about $4. For the California Bay Area, those prices are about a dollar or two cheaper than most other places in the region.

The company behind the robot cafe is Richmond, CA based Nourish Technology Inc. Along with building completely automated restaurants, they also aim to make high-quality, locally sourced food and drinks accessible and affordable to everyone.

Bev and Jarvis Programmed to Learn

The robot café is still in the beta and testing phase but Bev and Jarvis are picking up new skills every day. Ceo and Co-founder Greg Becker told Berkeleyside.com, “Robots Bev and Jarvis are programmed to “learn,” to become even more efficient with more experience.”

Only time will tell if Bbox will be a success. We would assume that people will appreciate the efficiency and lower prices. But many could also miss having interaction with a human barista or cashier.

Tell us what you think in the comments.

Check out our article on another robot cafe called Cafe X and an AI that helps detect road conditions.