Surprisingly, I’m not bothered by the robot barista as much as I expected.
In Seattle, our passion for coffee is rivaled only by our love for coffee shops. A stroll through just six blocks reveals at least half a dozen unique spots, each with its own atmosphere: one dedicated to chai, another nestled in a yoga studio, and a bustling Starbucks even in the late afternoon. Yet, I bypassed them all to reach a particular shop where a barista named Jarvis would greet me by name and whip up a solid latte infused with rose syrup — a typical Seattle experience. But unlike the other baristas keeping the city’s coffee scene alive, Jarvis is a robot.
Hill7, a luxury apartment complex, sits conveniently between the courthouse, the convention center, and a series of streets that serve as an extended I-5 on-ramp. It’s centrally located yet feels oddly isolated. My walk there takes me past vacant storefronts with graffiti-covered signs advertising prime retail space, alongside an Amazon Go store that appeared deserted. The next day, Amazon would announce its impending closure.
The robot barista operates from a large stand in the Hill7 lobby, sharing space with a sushi vendor. The air carries a pleasant mix of soy sauce and seaweed as I place my order on an iPad. Jarvis isn’t a full humanoid robot or just a fancy vending machine; it’s a robotic arm created by a local company, positioned next to a customized La Marzocco espresso machine. It communicates through a loudspeaker, guiding customers to order on the tablet and complimenting their drink choices.
Jarvis performs most of the tasks a human barista would, like grabbing cups, moving the portafilter between the espresso machine and grinder, and pouring latte art. Thanks to some behind-the-scenes automation, it doesn’t need to press buttons or pull levers to grind beans or brew espresso, but it mimics many familiar motions as it prepares my drink.
I got my first barista gig in college, and during training, I was shocked to learn that I was expected to engage with customers while making their coffee. Not only did I have to master a new skill set and memorize drink recipes, but I also had to overcome my social anxiety and make small talk with people who often didn’t want to chat. It was a nightmare. I tried my best, but sometimes I got so caught up in conversation that I messed up the coffee. I still remember the new dad who ordered decaf — I was so distracted that I handed him a drink loaded with three shots of espresso.
Later, I worked at an artisanal gelato shop where the owner took pride in a serious coffee program and didn’t require small talk. I learned how to dial in espresso and make pour-overs (which are trickier than they sound). During that time, I was navigating my messy 20s, dealing with my first breakup, and once showed up to work so hungover that the owner, visibly concerned, asked if I was okay. He thought I was having a breakdown; I just had a rough night.
Jarvis, however, has never shown up late, hungover, or sweating from a six-block trek to work. It remains in place when the shop closes at 3 PM. I also visited Artly’s location near Pike Place Market, where Jarvis is joined by two other robotic arms: Amanda and Ponyo. At both spots, a human oversees the robots. In one instance, the human assistant had to refill a milk tank when it ran dry while making my drink. They also cleaned up spilled milk on the counter in front of Jarvis. Mostly, though, the human employee seemed to sit idly scrolling on their phone while the robots repeated a greeting message on loop, despite the lack of customers.
I had encountered Jarvis before. Weeks earlier at CES, I stood in a Starbucks line at the Las Vegas Convention Center that looked like it would take 40 minutes. I searched for “coffee” in the CES app and found Artly’s booth just a short walk away. I imagined a machine producing mediocre coffee with gimmicky latte art and was honestly skeptical. I was pleasantly surprised.
According to Artly, Jarvis is trained to replicate the movements of a specific human barista, Joe Yang, who leads Artly’s coffee program and won the US Coffee Championship in 2023. It mimics his actions while making each drink, which takes about three minutes, as confirmed by my experience. Jarvis uses AI to make real-time adjustments, narrating things like “there are no grounds in the portafilter” when it encounters an issue. The drinks it prepared for me — a cappuccino at CES, the rose latte, and a plain latte — were good to very good, certainly exceeding my expectations for a robot barista and often better than what I’d get from a typical café that doesn’t specialize in espresso.
Jarvis, Joe Yang, and countless human baristas in Seattle have all mastered a crucial skill in crafting espresso drinks: properly steaming milk. To create a great latte or cappuccino, you need to introduce tiny bubbles by keeping the steam wand just above the milk’s surface, then let the steam create a vortex in the pitcher to blend this “micro foam” into a smooth texture. Well-steamed milk resembles wet paint, and if you hear the steam wand screaming against the sides of the pitcher, you know the texture isn’t being created. Proper steaming is as quiet as a whisper.
I made plenty of bad lattes before learning the right technique; that wasn’t part of the training at my corporate coffee job. But that was secondary at a place where most customers wanted either a mocha or a quick black drip coffee. The espresso machines there did most of the work for us; I mainly had to keep the bean hopper full and push the right button for a double shot.
My old boss at the gelato shop once mentioned that staffing was the toughest part of running a small business. Hiring, training, managing schedules, and constantly training new workers as others left. That job was the most physically demanding I’d ever had, and I wasn’t the best employee. But watching the owner work seven days a week, covering shifts when someone called in sick, and witnessing his investment literally go down the drain when I carelessly rinsed out a pan of freshly made sorbetto (yes, that really happened!) made me understand his point. People are challenging.
Big corporations seem to agree. Starbucks headquarters is about three miles south of Artly’s Hill7 location. I used to bike there often to visit the Reserve Roastery on the first floor, which was always busy and welcoming. The Reserve was Starbucks’ attempt at a fancy third-wave coffee shop, with a focused menu and a cozy atmosphere, and I never had a bad latte there.
Last fall, Starbucks abruptly closed it, vaguely citing an inability to create the physical environment customers and partners expect, or a lack of a path to financial performance. The baristas at that Reserve and another in Capitol Hill were unionized, but the company denies this influenced its decision to shut down.
My barista days may be behind me, but they still feel like a core part of my identity as a worker and a person. I learned how to make a great latte, but I also learned discipline and the consequences of lacking it. I learned to engage in small talk even when I wanted to keep my head down. I learned how awful it feels to show up to work after a wild night out, and I never made that mistake again. I learned how to mess up and keep going because people depend on you. I wasn’t the perfect employee; I was human.
My most cynical view of Jarvis is that it’s a neat substitute for the human touch. Robot baristas don’t make mistakes. They don’t need breaks. They don’t unionize. They’re predictable, reliable, and honestly capable of crafting a better latte than I did in my button-pushing corporate job. They’d be easier to manage in countless ways. But can you really call a robot coffee shop a coffee shop?
Artly has rolled out its robot barista in a few locations outside Seattle, with mixed results. There’s one at Pier 39 in a touristy area of San Francisco, but a couple of other nearby shopping mall locations listed on the company’s website appear as “permanently closed” on Google Maps, likely due to proximity to other human-operated options. It’s worth noting that my experiences might not reflect a typical visit to Artly. While the drinks I had were above average, they were also near the company’s headquarters, or, in the case of CES, under the direct supervision of its leadership. Not everyone raves about the coffee quality; even robots struggle to consistently meet high standards.
I’m heartened by the fact that Artly doesn’t position Jarvis as a replacement for existing human barista jobs. Currently, you can grab a coffee from one of their robots at Muji stores in the US and Canada, which notably didn’t employ baristas before introducing the robots. The company also lists Tesla’s Fremont factory as a partner location. As a job perk, especially in areas lacking a plethora of fancy coffee shops, a robot barista doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
In an airport lounge or a train station after hours, a robot barista makes perfect sense. But can you build a viable business around those scenarios? I’m less certain. During my recent visits to Artly’s shops, I didn’t see anyone else come in for a drink. Perhaps they’re busier in the mornings or during the summer when tourists flock to downtown. Yet, around the Pike Place Market area, many coffee shops seem just as busy as ever.
If a coffee shop is merely a place to walk in, place an order, and leave with a coffee better than what you can brew at home, then Artly fulfills that role. Depending on the time and day, that’s sometimes all I need from a coffee shop. But more often, a coffee shop serves as a destination — a place to escape the house, a physical embodiment of community. The coffee is usually excellent — a nod to Seattle’s coffee culture — but even when it’s not perfect, it offers a sense of humanity. And that’s something no robot can replicate.
