What if a robot could do everything that your Starbucks barista can do and for a potentially lower price?
According to Quartz, a startup called Briggo has created a robotic coffee shop that allows customers to order a whole slew of customized coffee drinks, as well as tea drinks, via smartphone or touchscreen and then makes the beverages inside a small kiosk.
"What we've created is in essence a small food factory that absolutely replicates what a champion barista does," CEO Kevin Nater told reporters. "We have calibrated this machine to pull espresso shots to the same specification as an Illy or a Stumptown or an Intelligentsia. We've just done it without the human element."
Briggo app asks an individual to log in, so it can memorize your order and payment information, which enables one-click coffee ordering. The app can also be used to check out how long the wait is for a drink. Briggo also charges its customers less for any given beverage because it is not paying an actual staff of baristas although they do have to build the robots.
But, does the army of robot baristas mean the end of Starbucks chain?
Nater told Quartz that Briggo does not think of Starbucks as the enemy.
"Think of it as an instrument people can use to create their ideal coffee experience," Nater said. "[Think of it as a cure for] out-of-home coffee drinkers, sick of an inconsistent experience."
So far Briggo only has one location, inside the University of Texas, however the Briggo team believes they've created the barista of the future and hopes to rival Starbucks one day.
"What we find at [the University of Texas] is that we have a younger generation of consumers who have no inhibition about ordering remotely and having self-service," Nater said. "Coffee shops are a great social interaction point, but so is social media."
