A storefront at the not-at-all-ominous 666 Manhattan Ave. address in the Greenpoint neighborhood Brooklyn, N.Y., opened this weekend as Botbar, a coffee shop.
It is manned by a robot named Adam, which interestingly, looks a bit like Eve from Disney Pixar’s “Wall-E,” – just a torso, a small rounded head and two arms. According to the company’s website, Adam is American made and NSF certified.
This robot is listed as one of Botbar’s “products” available for cost-cutting measures. The 666 Manhattan Ave. storefront appears to be the first physical Botbar coffee shop location.
“Our company is on a mission to break the chains of repetitive manual labor and bring unparalleled efficiency to traditional businesses through cutting-edge technology,” said its website. It also said that the bot comes with a three-year general usage warranty.
“Seamless operations you will have extra parts on site and any additional mechanical needs can be overnighted to ensure your robot doesn’t miss a shift! Our robots are self monitoring and aligned with a cloud based system for seamless updates,” it continued.
Botbar said that “only one licensee per county population of 500,000 people,” will be offered and that “a single owner can operate with our robots in multiple stores within the same county,” and that the bot is equipped with dairy sanitation features.
According to a write up in Eater, open hours were 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“Call it first-day jitters, but the robot was sold out of cold brew and cortados on opening morning and slow to execute customer orders,” said the outlet. “‘Refill hot coffee cup,’ it repeated in a lifeless voice.”
Earlier this month, Eater reported that Botbar is managed by Sunny Lam, who confirmed in an email that the shop should be serving food. As of the weekend, Eater said Botbar’s drinks ranged in price from $3 for an espresso to $5 for a cold brew and that it had standard food items like croissants and pastries on the menu.
“Eater has contacted manager Sunny Lam for more information on the shop’s hours and days of operation moving forward,” the outlet said Monday.
According to the Botbar website, it is “the home of intelligent robotic baristas that are revolutionizing the coffee industry,” and was “born in the heart of Nevada.”
Robotic equipment has been used to serve coffee before. The Spoon reported in 2021 on robot-made coffee available in the San Francisco International Airport at Cafe X.
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