A robot barista represents a larger vision for bringing robotics to more areas of retail
This past weekend, Richtech Robotics opened Clouffee & Tea, a coffee shop at the Town Square shopping center in its hometown of Las Vegas that features a robot barista named Adam.
Adam, a round white robot that emulates human movements, makes most of the beverages while one or two human workers prepare food items and replenish ingredients the robot has access to. Using Nvidia AI technology, the robot detects when customers are present, engages in conversation, takes orders and makes beverages including Americanos and lattes. Richtech expects to grow the brand by opening additional Clouffee & Tea locations featuring robot baristas in the future.
Richtech Robotics expects to expand Clouffee & Tea to dozens of locations in the next two to three years, but the company has larger ambitions than just operating a chain of robotic coffee shops. The company, which went public last year, has deployed more than 300 robots throughout the U.S., which are performing tasks at restaurants, retail stores, hotels, healthcare facilities, casinos, senior living homes and factories.
The development of the coffee-making robot was key to a major transition the company undertook last year, going from selling the robots outright to leasing them to operators of restaurants and other businesses — which the company calls a “robot as a service” model. The company took an $8.1 million net loss in fiscal 2024 to accommodate this shift. For example, through a leasing deal announced last year, the company added 20 robots to Ghost Kitchens America restaurants inside Walmart stores that used to be McDonald’s or Subway locations.
Other attempts to bring robots into retail environments have had mixed results. Pizza-making robot company Zume laid off 400 employees in 2020 and shut down in June 2023, with former CEO Clayton Wood citing hesitancies from investors about automation. Robotic kitchen startup Spyce had raised $25 million before Sweetgreen acquired the company and the startup closed its Boston location.
Matt Casella, president of Richtech Robotics, told Modern Retail that coffee shops are ideal for robotics given they are high-volume locations with repetitive tasks. He also said robots are best used alongside human employees. “That’s the way robots are used best today and into the near future,” Casella said. “There’s a significant amount of tasks they are great at and can help perform.”
Adam robots are available for lease by companies for events or conventions, and restaurant operator Zipphaus is setting up cafes with Adam inside hospitals and education facilities. The company has also deployed Adams for another chain of coffee shops called Botbar in California and New York City. In fiscal year 2024, Richtech made $857,000 in revenue from leasing Adam robots for events — one contract for the lease of 25 Adam units over 60 months cost $5.25 million, financial filings show. In fiscal 2024, the company made $4.2 million in revenue, down from $8.8 million the year before due to the change in business model.
Adam, which launched in 2022, is Richtech’s flagship robot. The company also has other models for specific uses: one called Matradee for serving and bussing at restaurants; Medbot for deliveries in medical spaces; Titan for heavy loads and large spaces; Skylark for deliveries in hotels and apartments; Dust-E for commercial cleaning; and Scorpion, a mini version of Adam for use as a bartender or barista.
“We’re really on a push to increase the number of Adams out in the world working as baristas of one stripe or another,” Casella said. “For us, it’s really important to focus on and capture the customer’s attention through the experience that is walking into a robotic restaurant.”
Richtech previously opened Cloutea, a boba-tea shop at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, in 2022 before closing the concept to make way for Clouffea & Tea this year. It sells coffee, in addition to boba tea and milk tea, and features a refined customer experience and restaurant layout. Cloutea, a model to develop the concept of a robot barista, made $256,000 in revenue in fiscal 2024, according to SEC filings. The company sees expanding offerings to include coffee as a growth strategy that offers a blueprint for integrating the robot into other coffee and tea businesses.
Other companies have experimented in the space including Miso Robotics, which produces an automated fry station called Flippy, and Cafe X, which makes robotic coffee shop kiosks in airports and museums. In its financial filings, Richtech refers to both as competitors, but said Adam is ahead of Flippy, which only just started to take orders in 2024. In addition, Adam can provide more beverage choices than Cafe X. Cafe X started in 2015 and now has about a dozen locations, according to its website.
“Particularly in this food services area, robots are increasingly being used for automating tasks like preparing foods in restaurants, serving customers and even cleaning,” said Sudip Mazumder, svp and retail industry lead for Publicis Sapient, adding that these systems can be expensive. “There is an amount of capital you have to put in upfront, so the key is to test and learn to use some of these technologies and see how it is working before you decide to scale.”
Brothers Wayne and Michael Huang founded Richtech in 2017. Wayne started in interactive displays and moved into delivery robots before developing humanoid robots like Adam, according to Casella.
“It really came from what was perceived by Wayne and others, myself included, as a lack of attention by the robotics industry in the hospitality and service-sector space,” compared to manufacturing and industrial applications, Casella said. “When you have robots performing surgery, we’re at a place where those robots or that technology can be used to prepare coffee.”
Richtech envisions using Adam in more ways throughout the food and beverage industry to drive significant recurring revenue for the company.
“A robot like Adam works every shift that you’re open, every day that you’re open,” Casella said. “One robot can stand in and can become an integral tool that is used by your employees.”