Automated coffee drive-thru Octane Coffee pushed its expected opening date from fall 2021 to spring 2022, in part due to challenges getting plumbing approval with the city of Pewaukee, Octane Coffee founder and CEO Adrian Deasy said.
The company has signed a lease for its first location at W229 N1400 Westwood Drive in Waukesha, in the parking lot just north of Veloce Indoor Speedway and Point Burger Bar. Although it has a Waukesha address, it's under Pewaukee's jurisdiction, Deasy said.
As part of Milwaukee Tech Week, Octane Coffee demonstrated its robotic coffee technology Oct. 30 at its roughly 2,000-square-foot fabrication facility at 1319 Poplar Drive in Waukesha. Click through the slideshow above to see the technology behind the Octane Coffee concept.
Since Octane Coffee will technically be a vending machine instead of a restaurant, there are different plumbing requirements it will need to meet for its water supply and drains. However, the city's plumbing inspector is requiring documentation to certify that Octane Coffee will be a vending machine, Deasy said.
"Welcome to doing first-in-the-world type things," Deasy said. "No one quite knows how to handle you."
Octane Coffee will be built inside of a shipping container. The fully automated drive-thru will serve Stone Creek Coffee, as well as tea and juice. Stone Creek Coffee founder and managing director Eric Resch is an investor in Octane, Deasy said.
Once the drive-thru is up and running, it will be unstaffed and open 24/7. Customers will order through a mobile app and the company's machinery will make and serve the beverages. Octane plans to service each location daily to clean and restock, Deasy said.
After the first location opens, Octane Coffee plans to raise a Series A investment round and then open two additional locations in the Milwaukee area, Deasy said. It closed a $400,000 seed round in February. The company also plans to manufacture its fully-automated coffee drive-thrus in the Milwaukee area and ship them to franchise partners around the country, Deasy said.
Octane currently has fewer than five team members, including Deasy and "a couple of programmers," he said. As the business scales, it could have a staff of 10 to 15 in the next year or two.
"We're creating a different variety of job where it's not necessarily a barista making drinks, but it's a high-skilled, high-tech workforce that's behind the scenes making this type of product even possible," Deasy said.
