JD Seven Fresh Coffee Opens First 24-Hour Robot-Run Store in Beijing

On August 16, Seven Fresh Coffee, a brand under JD Group, opened its first 24-hour intelligent unmanned coffee shop at Galaxy SOHO in Dongcheng District, Beijing. The entire process from brewing to serving is executed by robots, with customers placing orders through in-store self-service screens or the JD application, after which the system automatically assigns orders. Each cup takes approximately 20 to 30 seconds to produce, and the store served 202 cups in the first hour after opening. Within 19 hours of opening, the store had produced more than 1,900 cups of coffee.

The store manager said that staff will be present for maintenance during the initial period, after which the store will revert to fully unmanned 24-hour operation with no on-site personnel. The store is equipped with a complete automated unmanned coffee production line responsible for brewing and serving. A separate robot device handles transport, moving beverages from the serving outlet to the pickup cabinet, and customers can watch the entire process from cup placement, ice dispensing, and fresh brewing to cabinet delivery on in-store screens. Technology partners for the store include Xianglu Robot and UniXAI, and technical modules and equipment will be adjusted according to different store formats in the future.

According to the ordering mini-program, the lowest-priced item is the classic American at RMB 5.9 per cup, fresh milk latte is priced at RMB 9.9, and the most expensive item, the extra-strength fresh milk latte, costs RMB 11.9. Products were given away free on opening day, with the above prices reflecting only the mini-program display. The store is located in a core business district within Beijing's Second Ring Road, surrounded by dense office buildings with concentrated coffee demand, and within the same 100-metre radius there are also Starbucks, MANNER, and Luckin Coffee outlets.

Unmanned coffee shops are not a new concept; chain coffee brands have previously piloted unmanned coffee terminals in office building settings, and some coffee hardware companies have also entered the sector through equipment. With the development of the robotics and embodied intelligence industries, the scaling process of the unmanned coffee sector has shifted. Previously, Yingzhi XBOT, a general-purpose catering embodied intelligence robot company, announced that it had completed two consecutive financing rounds totalling hundreds of millions of yuan, with more than 1,000 of its coffee robots deployed. In October 2017, Luckin's first store opened at Galaxy SOHO in Beijing. As of the time of writing, Seven Fresh Coffee has not disclosed its future store expansion plans.