One small coffee shop in Portland took the social distancing in the current pandemic to the next level. It introduced Jarvis, fully robotic service barista. Joy Coffee is already making headlines as its owner is national roasters competition finalist. By “employing” Jarvis, coffeeshop managed to regain much of the business lost due to Corona virus fears. Human employees are still employed, while Jarvis is a contact-less front-line employee. Customers find the experience to be novel, even though Jarvis is not as fast as human baristas and is not a multi-tasker. Whether Jarvis will be out of employment in post pandemic world is yet to be determined.
Key Takeaways:
- Nationally-rated coffee master Joe Yang has added a robotic barista named Jarvis to his staff at In J Coffee.
- Jarvis, an arm-shaped robot made by a Danish robotics firm, s capable of operating the full range of equipment used by human baristas.
- Yang first became interested in the idea of a robotic barista after COVID-19 made customers fearful of interacting with his human staff members.
“Speed is one gift that Jarvis lacks. It takes the robot four minutes to make a mocha, Yang said, whereas a human can do it in one.”