When the customer picks up the coffee, the robot server informs him, “It’s a hot Americano.” The robot server can carry up to four drinks at the same time and is capable of distinguishing each drink and announcing the name when serving it. When it gets busy, other robots come to its aid to deliver the drinks to customers. The 330㎡ cafe is staffed with three robot servers. After delivering all the drinks, the robots automatically recharge themselves via the docking system installed on one of the walls, while waiting for the next order.

Called Storant, the unmanned robot cafe officially opened on May 15, 2020. The name, Storant, stands for “smart automatic restaurant.” The coffee shop will be operated 24/7 without any human staff. This was the fruit borne out of more than three years of technical development carried out by Vision Semicon, a semiconductor company located in Daedeok Innopolis.

A representative from Storant said, “We launched our smart factory business seven years ago and after countless trials and errors, we decided to go forward with an unmanned robot cafe three years ago. [...] By applying the technologies we’ve gained over the course of seven years, we managed to open the world’s first 24/7 unmanned robot cafe in Daejeon. [...] It is a completely automated cafe comprised of a smart barista system capable of making some 50 different drinks according to the programmed recipes, robot servers, and digital kiosks. [...] We believe this will be the most suitable dine-out business type in the ‘untact (contactless)’ era of today.”

Vision Semicon has confirmed its plans to open ten additional Storant locations by the end of November this year. The company will gradually expand its network and open 30 shops in total.