Binary Cafe
The rise of pervasive digital technology and social media in our everyday lives allows for a world of greater convenience and connection coupled with the dichotomy of isolation and loneliness. The Binary Cafe concept explores contrasting themes of digital/analog, connectedness/loneliness, and fast/slow, while redefining the purpose of the digital ecosystem in the Starbucks third place as a means of diminishing disruption to enhance human connection.
Starbucks CONCEPT
BINARY CAFE
The rise of pervasive digital technology and social media in our everyday lives allows for a world of greater convenience and connection coupled with the dichotomy of isolation and loneliness. The Binary Cafe concept explores contrasting themes of digital/analog, connectedness/loneliness, and fast/slow, while redefining the purpose of the digital ecosystem in the Starbucks third place as a means of diminishing disruption to enhance human connection.
Technology is embedded seamlessly within the environment to allow for more human-centered experiences built upon a hospitality-centric service model. The traditional queue, menu panels, and POS are removed, bestowing greater autonomy on behalf of the customer to explore, discover, taste, and ultimately connect. Custom-designed Bluetooth-enabled furniture with embedded lighting elements emit a soft glow to direct baristas towards customers awaiting their hand-delivered food and beverage while geo-fencing alerts baristas when a customer has entered the store to pick up their mobile order. The store layout is derived from a piazza-like approach of both seeing at the periphery and being-seen at the center living room lounge. Residential cues are layered into the experience to provide a greater sense of familiarity and comfort. The Binary Café concept ultimately serves as a vehicle for removing disruption to combat isolation.
1. A customer places their order through the Starbucks mobile order app.
2. The order is prepared by the back of house barista and moved to the holding tray.
3. Order is collected from the holding tray and transferred to the front of house by the barista who then stages the order in the mobile order tray system.
4. After staging, Bluetooth camera technology keeps track of each customer’s order while embedded lighting elements cue the barista when the customer will be arriving to the store and how long the order has been waiting.
5. Once order is complete, the customer is notified that their order is ready to be picked up.
6. Geo-fencing technology is leveraged to notify the barista when the customer has entered the store. This, in turn, lights up the customer’s order bin for ease of order recognition.
7. Order is delivered to the customer by name and with a smile.
