People Who Love Robot Baristas Don’t Get What Coffee Shops Are For

“GREENPOINT’S NEWEST COFFEE SHOP WILL BE STAFFED BY A ROBOT BARISTA”

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Photo by Seb Cumberbirch on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, an Instagram post gave me life. 

The neighborhood news account @greenpointers posted a tongue-in-cheek announcement about a new cafe opening in the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood. The post starts: “GREENPOINT’S NEWEST COFFEE SHOP WILL BE STAFFED BY A ROBOT BARISTA”

As I scrolled through the caption, I was sure this would be some sort of congratulatory post welcoming the new business to one of Greenpoint’s busiest streets. But as I read on, I realized the caption was mocking the concept. The café, which will be called Botbar Coffee, claims that “Humans can be unpredictable. Let the robot make your coffee.” 

In response, @greenpointers wrote: “But lest you criticize it for literally being a bloodless, heartless robot, please note that the robot is a keen patron of the arts, as it also enjoys dancing for customers, in a way which ‘drives organic social media content, which boosts interest and increases foot traffic to your locations,’ according to the coffee shop’s website.”

If the post’s sarcasm comforted me, then the comments section is what really made me feel like everything would be OK. Over 800 people responded to the post with sentiments ranging from confusion (“Curious how their market research led them to Greenpoint….lol”) to solidarity (“Have never physically wanted to boycott a business more in my life.”) to bafflement (“over my many years of living in nyc i’ve made some of my closest friends at my local coffee shops. no joke. this is missing the point.”). 

It seems Botbar’s death knell is already ringing out. The proof? Botbar has restricted comments on its Instagram account.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I wasn’t afraid of robot baristas, and I’m still not. I was heartened by the number of people who felt compelled to share their disdain for Botbar’s new concept, especially in the wake of a recent survey that showed most Starbucks patrons would continue frequenting the chain whether or not management bargained with the union in good faith. (Only 4% said “they would never visit again if Starbucks and the unions failed to reach an agreement,” while 69% polled said the union process would have “no impact on visit frequency.”) 

Stats like this really bum me out, and show how difficult it is to organize large groups of people for a collective shared interest—and how easy (and often necessary) it is to remain apathetic in a capitalist society. The comments section of the @greenpointers post, however, demonstrates the opposite: People care about their communities, and want to show support for their local businesses. 

But it’s not just about support, as that last comment—the one about making friends in coffee shops—shows. The commenter shares a personal story, but also unintentionally reaffirms the whole point of coffee shops. Botbar’s robot might be able to make coffee faster and more efficiently than a human barista, but coffee shops were never really about the coffee itself. From the get-go, they were created as spaces for people to gather, discuss ideas, and share space with their community. 

‘NEVER TAKES A SICK DAY’

The @greenpointers post includes a digital rendering of a coffee shop featuring one of Botbar’s robot baristas, taken from the company’s Instagram account. The mockup oddly departs from actual photos of the space, which somehow feel sadder than the mockup and feature a large, wooden bar with a robot barista plopped on top.

The rendering, in contrast, looks like the interior of a futuristic space pod: washed in tones of white and gray, lacking any details one might describe as “warm.” Instead of an espresso bar, there’s a table off to the corner, and there sits Adam: the name of the specific robot model that will occupy the new Greenpoint space. 

The Botbar website personifies Adam, not just by giving him a name but by describing the robot as “a key member of your staff” with the following capabilities: 

• High-performer

• Thrives in fast-paced environments

• Precise and consistent

• Highly adaptable

• Reliable—never takes a sick day

• Passionate about service

Highlighting the robot’s ability to “never take a sick day” is the stuff I’m scared of: That owners and managers might actually believe robots are a way to solve pesky human problems like needing time off. That’s a pretty morally corrupt reason to buy a highly technical machine versus hiring real people. While I do think people with money and power are depraved enough to think robots like this are good ideas, the rendering alone showed me this business model has no legs.

You’ve likely heard of the concept of the “third space,” or the idea that humans need a place to exist and interact with the world outside of either home or work. Even Starbucks uses the term, though the concept originates in sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s 1989 book, “The Great Good Place.” The central tenet of Oldenburg’s book is that these places are required for a society to thrive. “Subsequent training in sociology helped me to understand that when the good citizens of a community find places to spend pleasurable hours with one another for no specific or obvious purpose, there is purpose to such occasion,” he writes. “Places such as these, which serve virtually everyone, soon create an environment in which everyone knows just about everyone.” 

Our Third Places

Botbar’s rendering clearly depicts the space as utilitarian: You go, get your coffee, maybe take a seat on one of the strangely designed chairs for a moment—and then leave. The coffee shop serves just one purpose: caffeination. It makes sense that Botbar’s website highlights the robot’s efficiency, because that’s the extent to which it can imagine the role of the coffee shop. Botbar’s model depends on distilling down a coffee shop’s primary tangible good—the coffee itself—and optimizing it, ignoring the far greater, intangible value of community spaces. 

Brute efficiency was never the point of coffee shops historically. The earliest such spaces began popping up in the 1600s, and were often the only places people of varying social classes could commingle, and thinkers of the day used them to hash out novel ideas. “During the Enlightenment, Voltaire, Rousseau and Isaac Newton could all be found talking philosophy over coffee. The cafés of Paris sheltered revolutionaries plotting the storming of the Bastille and later, served as the place authors like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre plotted their latest books,” Jessica Pearce Rotondi writes on History.com. 

For Oldenburg, third spaces don’t have to be coffee shops—they can be parks, churches, salons ... pretty much any place where most people are welcome to congregate. “Great civilizations, like great cities, share a common feature. Evolving within them and crucial to their growth and refinement are distinctive informal public gathering places,” Oldenburg says, before describing famous third places throughout time: the café-lined streets of Paris, the pub culture of London, the piazzas of Florence. His book was a response to the urban development and growth of suburbs in the United States, which often lack collective gathering places open to all. 

Oldenburg ascribes a few necessary attributes for third places: They need to be locations where “conversation is the main activity” and be “an inclusive place ... accessible to the general public and does not set formal criteria of membership and exclusion.” He also thinks third places shouldn’t be too aesthetic: a shiny new facade would only serve to attract tourists and passersby rather than foster the regulars who make a space a community hub. “Plainness, or homeliness, is also the ‘protective coloration’ of many third places,” he writes. 

Coffee shops that seek solely to optimize functions like coffee making, then, miss the point. I do think many modern coffee shops have gotten away from Oldenburg’s original definition of the third place, and have been warped to prioritize profit for myriad reasons: Rent continues to skyrocket, and the idea of small business ownership being the actualization of “The American Dream” means we expect—and need—these spaces to make money. It’s not like you can’t exist to make profit and still be a community hub, but that balance is always tenuous—and it’s when you swing further towards profit that you lose purpose and presence.

And then there’s Starbucks. As I mentioned, Starbucks co-opted the term “third place” years ago, and in 2022, it published a piece on “reimagining the third place,” focusing on coffee innovations and technology like mobile ordering. These ideas don’t speak to Oldenburg’s original concept at all: They’re related to commerce, not connection. 

I believe many of these places will continue to strike out if they funnel all their energy into making the exchange of money easier. If Oldenburg’s book has anything to teach us, it’s that third places have been around for millennia, and will continue to be important to society—even if they’re under threat. 

Oldenburg is still alive, and I tried to find out what he thought of Starbucks taking his term as its own. I couldn’t find any response, but I imagine he’d hate it. I wonder if he also fears more and more corporate interests buying up plots of land to develop high rises, or the consolidation of coffee brands, or the ever-winnowing sameness of coffee shops.

I also imagine that he knows history is on his side. The fact that public spaces are shrinking doesn’t render them unnecessary, and I hope we’ll continue to seek out and protect these crucial gathering places at all costs. Robots need not apply. 

A Programming Note

I won’t be publishing a new episode next week since Memorial Day is one of a handful of holidays people traditionally get off in the U.S., and I’d like to be better at taking time off. But I will be publishing a round-up of some of my favorite reading material from the last few weeks for paid subscribers. Thanks all!