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A robot barista crafts the coffee at new cafe Yummy Future in downtown Palo Alto.
The robot doesn’t have a face, just an arm that transfers cups between espresso machine, ice machine, milk dispenser and syrup dispenser. It can complete drinks in as fast as 45 seconds and calculates the fastest steps to complete a rush of orders, ensuring customers receive quick and consistent beverages, according to CEO Jack Cui.
“For now, the biggest ability it has is scheduling,” he said. “It’s like a dancer. It automatically calculates what’s the best route, what’s the quickest time.”
Furthermore, the robot guarantees reliability, Cui said. While traditional coffee shops have recipes baristas follow, there’s typically variability in the drinks depending on who makes it. The robot on the other hand will always dispense the same amount of ice, syrup, milk and espresso, he said.
Yummy Future opened in October in the former space of American Apparel along University Avenue. With ample seating (about 40), plentiful charging ports and even white boards for brainstorming or equations, it’s become a hotspot for remote work and studying. For those feeling peckish, an assortment of pastries are available from Manresa Bread and sandwiches from Sprout Cafe.
In addition to classic coffee shop beverages such as cappuccinos and mochas, Yummy Future’s menu features a variety of specialty drinks, including lattes topped with black sesame or pistachio cream or flavored with toffee nut or caramel apple syrup ($4-7.50). Non-coffee options include a matcha latte topped with strawberry cream, jasmine milk tea and mango sparkling lemonade ($6-$7.50).
Cui doesn’t aim to put baristas out of work with his robot; in fact, he emphasized the importance of the human touch. While the barista robot completes repetitive mechanical work, human baristas can focus on other tasks, such as customer service. More attentive service creates a better customer experience and incentivizes customers to frequent the cafe more often, Cui reasoned.
“Human baristas can do a lot of things,” Cui said. “They are really, really important in terms of keeping oil in the machines, keeping everything well functioning, refilling all the ingredients, and also greeting customers. That emotional connection is the most important thing we have seen.”
Moreover, with lower labor costs, material costs for ingredients can be higher and the cafe’s hours can be more expansive, he said. The cafe uses beans from sustainable coffee roasters San Francisco-based Sightglass Coffee and Counter Culture Coffee, as well as matcha from Japan and black sesame from Taiwan, creating what Cui calls a “premium drink.” Yummy Future is also open until 9 or 10 p.m., depending on the night – atypical for coffee shops in the area.
“Normally, the shop operation has to have a certain number of people in order to keep it functioning well, otherwise it will be messy (and) people will get stressed out,” Cui said. “But once we take out the labor-intensive tasks, it’s pretty easy for people to handle everything else.”
Cui, along with COO Garrett Yan, launched the first Yummy Future robot in 2018 in Champaign, Illinois. The business partners met in undergrad at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and have been living at various motels during Yummy Future’s Palo Alto debut. Cui is a self-described foodie, joking that robotics is “torture,” but seeing people happy makes it worth it.
Cui is working on expanding the Yummy Future’s drink menu and programming the robot to be able to whisk matcha. He envisions a future where the presence of a robot is common at all coffee shops, similar to the increase in automatic espresso machines.
“We really want to ensure we are getting better food quality, (and) we are enjoying our lives better through technology enhancement,” Cui said. “We are really passionate about caring about customers and providing robots as a tool to actually change the way we make food or drink.”
Yummy Future is not the only robotic food concept along the Peninsula. Burger Bots, a burger-making robot, debuted in May in Los Gatos.
Yummy Future, 170 University Ave., Palo Alto; Instagram: @yummyfuturebay. Open Sunday to Thursday from 8 a.m to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
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