We’ve all had countless beverages prepared by fine baristas who greet us with their masterful skills and charming smiles, but the world as we’ve come to know it prepares itself for the future.
ELLA, Singapore’s first ever robotic barista, works four times faster than a human barista, and can serve up to 200 cups per hour.
We’ve all imagined the possibility of robots taking over human jobs, and now you can experience this for yourself, by ordering drinks like Americano, Cappuccino, Latte, Teh Tarik and Chocolate drinks starting at $4 from ELLA.
ELLA’s first prototype was devised in 2017, and since then, she has come a long way. In 2018, Crown Coffee was invited to showcase ELLA at the ASEAN Summit hosted in Singapore. After feedback was collected from all her appearances at various events, in 2019, ELLA underwent massive modifications to her speed, robotic movement, consistency, and other configurations.
This year, the team at Crown Group worked through the Circuit Breaker at Crown Group to bring ELLA to life, as she proudly sits in her new CT Hub 2 home today, next to Crown Coffee.
ELLA is a one-woman show. She does it all!
Using a convenient touchscreen, you place your order and ELLA gives you an order number as she starts to prepare your drink. While she brews your delicious concoction, a huge LCD screen creates an interactive experience as you wait. You may get to play a game or even partake in an augmented reality photo booth before your order number flashes and your drink is served.
Payments are cashless. You may use any existing mobile banking applications or cards to make your payment, but you’ll enjoy 25% discounts and rebates on your orders if you use your Crown Dollars on the Crown Coffee app with every payment.
ELLA could be the solution to many problems we are seeing today. The pandemic has brought many of the shortfalls within the food and beverage industry in Singapore to surface, like the insufficient use of cashless payments and contactless services.
Manpower shortages are also a core reason why a robotic barista is essential. Several baristas are required to meet the daily influx of customers, especially during peak periods. This may compromise the consistency of drinks, which will never happen with ELLA, as consistency is guaranteed by the team at Crown Group.
Very soon, you will be hearing of ELLAs being deployed islandwide to serve you drinks contactlessly, cashlessly, with the best interactive experiences for you to engage with, through Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“This is not the dream. ELLA was always designed to scale. The dream is to have ELLA’s all across the island. We designed ELLA for coffee, but the reality is that with a bit of programming – ELLA could exist to serve other types of food and beverage products. I truly believe that ELLA is the future, and we’re closer to the future than you think.”
Keith Tan, CEO of Crown Group.
So to see the future in action for yourself, head on down to CT Hub 2, 114 Lavender Street, #01-25, from 8.00am to 9.00pm from Sunday to Thursday and 8.00am to 10.00pm on Friday and Saturday!
Be sure to have the Crown Coffee app ready on your mobile phone, by downloading it from Apple’s App Store or Android’s Google Play!
Visuals courtesy of Crown Coffee.
