This week, Cafe X CEO Henry Hu retweeted Elon Musk, who had tweeted out a video showcasing a flythrough video of Giga Berlin. The reason? Tesla’s newest Giga Factory serves coffee and tea using one of Hu’s robotic coffee shops.
While the robot barista’s arms are painted red with the words Tesla printed on them, anyone familiar with the Cafe X robot coffee shops will instantly recognize them.
Lobby of Giga Berlin just finished and it’s filled with cool tech for visitors! https://t.co/W57MTLbkrw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 10, 2023
Cafe X was one of the early arrivers in robot-powered front-of-house food service, but in the last couple of years, the company’s been quiet as it closed most of its San Francisco locations. In recent months, however, Hu has been tweeting about the company shipping out new Cafe Xs and getting Tesla merch, so it’s probably not too surprising one showed up in a Giga Factory. It probably didn’t hurt that one of Cafe X’s original investors is Jason Calcanis, a close associate of Elon, who has been actively pushing the idea.
Cafe X’s last venture round that was disclosed was in 2020, and it recently raised money via the crowdfunding platform Republic. The company’s disclosure on Republic said its robot cafes at SFO generated $700 thousand in 2022 alone and that the company had shipped five robotic coffee shops in 2022. As of early spring, the company said it had orders for ten more in 2023 and expected to ship a total of 50 this year. The company listed the cost for a Cafe X at $285 thousand with an annual software and service cost of $15 thousand.
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