CafeX: Miraculous or Disastrous?

San Francisco’s new robot cafe sparks discussion

Upon entering Terminal 1 and 3 of San Francisco International Airport, I must always scour the food and beverage options. As I walk, I see a compact glass rectangle, greeting me with a screen displaying “good afternoon!”.

Behind the glass, a white figure starts to whir in circles, accompanied by the sound gears clicking and shifting. Within minutes, LED lights illuminate a small compartment where a freshly made drink is placed inside the glass.

Cafe X is an entirely automated cafe open 24 hours a day and offers a wide variety of drinks, from lemonade to coffee. Although this new and innovative cafe sounds exciting, it also raises questions regarding the role of robotics in the service indus- try.

Henry Hu, the founder of Cafe X, told Veritas he first got inspiration for the company while passing through the Changi Airport in Singapore, waiting for his drink. Despite being one of the world’s most renowned airports, Hu stated he saw a lack of efficiency after seeing the lines for coffee shops at the airport.

Cafe X is great for travelers with early morning flights, or those with layovers looking for a snack. But how does it compare to a real cafe?

On his recent flight out of SFO for a robotics competition, Gunn High School junior Ethan Sa decided to try CafeX out for himself out of curiosity.

Sa told Veritas that the drinks were comparable in taste and noted that the efficiency significantly increased when robots were added to the equation.

“Cafe X was definitly quicker to make,” Sa stated. “I think taste wise they’re pretty similar. It’s hard to tell, but it was definitely a lot faster for sure.”

Cafe X has a methodical ordering system, where users scan a QR code with their mobile phone to get to a menu. Though many in-person cafes have ordering kiosks and online orders, these methods usually or even once the drink has come out people will come back and ask for different things” Jeong stated. “So I think taking care of those complexities would still require humans,” Jeong said.” ly be able to replace the 5-6 employees in a typical coffee shop. One question is how would this futuristic invention impact these minimum wage workers today? aren’t the first choice option for ordering. Cafe X does have some customization options, like choosing milk types, sugar levels and ice levels. However there is only so much specificity.

Additionally, is CafeX really more effective than a human? A robot barista is something you don’t see every day. Cafe X at this point has one main robot\ making drinks, while many cafes have far more than one employee.

Jeong said that the Cafe has negative implications for low-income workers.

Senior Ajin Jeong, a Boba Guys employee, said there are limitations to the robots’ customization abilities.

“People ask for customizations

On the flip slide, the benefit of the 24-hour availability is especially helpful for those in an airport during off-peak hours (e.g. midnight to-6 a.m). It also reduces the pressures to tip, since Cafe X isn’t a real human that earns any sort of wage. However, Cafe X occupies a small, rectangular space in the corner of an airport. As a result, the overall ambiance a coffee shop typically provides might be lost.

A robot barista would potential-

“In the service industry, people don’t really need that much training or schooling since it’s kind of like simple tasks” Jeong said.”It will take jobs away from those people who, for example, were not able to get education to enter a different career field. I think a lot of the time, people who weren’t able to receive higher and specialized education to go into different career fields will be impacted.”

For now, Cafe X’s flashy and futuristic image definitely helps it stand out, but time will have to tell if it’s here to stay.

Text by Saanvi Garg and Sandhya Krishnan

Photos by Divij Motwani and Ethan Sa