AT&T Adding Cafe and Self Checkout

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Alpha8472
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AT&T Adding Cafe and Self Checkout

Post by Alpha8472 »

The company is opening a new store with a cafe inside called The Lounge by AT&T. Coffee robots will brew coffee for customers. Customers will order from touch screens or mobile devices and then pick up their devices from secure lockers.

I have seen photos and videos of the soon to open store and it looks more like a large cafe. There are two small tables for cell phones on display. It looks more like a Starbucks that just happens to sell phones and devices on one side of the store. There are employees serving coffee and food. The robot thing is probably only about brewing the coffee.

Perhaps, AT&T is not doing so well and has decided to open up cafes to battle Starbucks.
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Re: AT&T Adding Cafe and Self Checkout

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 23rd, 2018, 2:34 pm The company is opening a new store with a cafe inside called The Lounge by AT&T. Coffee robots will brew coffee for customers. Customers will order from touch screens or mobile devices and then pick up their devices from secure lockers.

I have seen photos and videos of the soon to open store and it looks more like a large cafe. There are two small tables for cell phones on display. It looks more like a Starbucks that just happens to sell phones and devices on one side of the store. There are employees serving coffee and food. The robot thing is probably only about brewing the coffee.

Perhaps, AT&T is not doing so well and has decided to open up cafes to battle Starbucks.
The commissioned salespeople in these corporate AT&T Stores used to be paid incredibly well. This may also be a way to restructure staffing in the locations to have more of a variety of staff positions at different (lower) pay rates.
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Re: AT&T Adding Cafe and Self Checkout

Post by pseudo3d »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 23rd, 2018, 2:34 pm Perhaps, AT&T is not doing so well and has decided to open up cafes to battle Starbucks.
Pre-buying TimeWarner, AT&T was making a net income of $30B a year. Most retailers (even Walmart) would not even dream of that amount. If any retailer had even half of that every year, they could probably pay down all their debt and finance a significant expansion.
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Re: AT&T Adding Cafe and Self Checkout

Post by SamSpade »

Relatively long article and great photos about how the concept is being executed in the Seattle Capitol Hill neighborhood:
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/att-merge ... e-concept/

Sounds a little like the Capital One Cafes. We just received one in Oregon in downtown Portland. It has a Peet's Coffee... a block from Peet's. But the regular Peet's is closed for a renovation right now. I've seen their advertising in downtown Seattle's transit tunnel as well.
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