By Dustin Stone, RTN staff writer - 9.17.2025
Octane Coffee is betting big on automation to reshape the future of coffee. Founder and CEO Adrian Deasy says the inspiration came from watching Starbucks and Dunkin’ dominate the Midwest with long drive-thru lines. “We couldn’t fathom why someone would wait 20+ minutes in the drive-thru lane for a mediocre coffee,” he says. “Once we dug into the labor savings that were possible, it was a no-brainer to develop our turn-key and employee-free coffee shop model.” That vision became reality in October 2023 when Octane Coffee opened its first location in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, following a stress-testing period.
Unlike many companies that introduce automation in piecemeal fashion — think kiosks to replace order-takers — Octane Coffee was designed from day one to eliminate all human labor from the customer-facing process. “Most companies try to take baby steps to replace specific human roles and tasks. While this can yield ROI, it also creates a lot of technical debt and reliance on outside service providers,” Deasy explains. “We are not reliant on third-party providers for all the various tech pieces. We provide all the service, support, and custom hardware.”
Milwaukee, and nearby Pewaukee, may not be a hotbed for drive-thru coffee, but Deasy, an engineer by training with a background in manufacturing and CAD design, says it was the right place to launch. “Nearly all of our team members have grown up in Wisconsin and love where we live,” he says. “There are many local universities for talent and automation supply companies for parts. Wisconsin is filled with hardworking and talented people who love to build things.”
Customers’ first reactions often involve disbelief at the speed and simplicity. “First-time customers usually do a double-take when they pick up their drinks. If you order ahead via our app, your pickup experience is usually under 30 seconds. Most people look down at their drink and then look back at the window and we can tell there’s a moment of, ‘Is that it? It’s too simple…’”
Behind the scenes, Octane Coffee uses sensors, digital measurements, and cameras to ensure drinks are prepared consistently and accurately. Drinks are customized on demand and made just before pickup. Even when the company deploys a handful of “Ambassadors” during peak hours, the labor footprint is less than half of a typical coffee drive-thru. Most of the time, there’s nobody on-site. Each location requires only about one hour of human labor per day, dedicated to cleaning and restocking.
The pricing strategy is designed to compete directly with Starbucks and Dunkin’. “We price our menu 10–15% cheaper than our local Starbucks competitors, and there’s also no tipping function in our app that saves customers another 10–20%,” says Deasy. “We use premium ingredients and support other local businesses whenever possible, so our COGS are much higher than our corporate coffee competitors. Once we get to some economies of scale, we’ll be able to drive down prices even further.”
Building and deploying a robotic coffee system from scratch wasn’t easy. “When I started, there was no framework to launch a business like this from the regulatory, government, and local city levels. I had to figure it out,” says Deasy. Reliability, redundancy, and software capable of handling countless “what-ifs” were critical hurdles. Octane now monitors constant data streams to troubleshoot issues remotely and works closely with established equipment vendors in coffee, refrigeration, ice, and fountain systems.
The competitive landscape is beginning to take shape, with players like Cafe X, Crown Coffee in Singapore, and Truebird in Brooklyn also betting on robotic baristas. But Octane’s fully automated, drive-thru-only model sets it apart from those kiosk- or café-based approaches.
Deasy sees automation as the long-term solution to the industry’s labor struggles. “It’s already hard to find labor for current restaurants and coffee shops. We expect wages to rise and put even more pressure on their pricing models. Automation IS a long-term solution, and we’ll see more adoption as this type of equipment goes mainstream.”
The next steps include expanding across Wisconsin in 2026 and opening the model up to franchising. But for Deasy, it isn’t just about efficiency or cost savings. “We believe the best technology should be synonymous with magic,” he says, referencing the Arthur C. Clarke quote. “We’ve been very deliberate in the design of our customer experience to make it more about the quality, value, and time savings than it is about the gimmick of a robot making you a drink.”
