Meet Yanu: The Robot That Makes Your Drink

What we talked about.

Sunny Ray talks with Alan Adorjan, calling in from Estonia, about Yanu, an autonomous robot bar built to serve drinks faster than a human can. Alan spent years running nightclubs, bars, and restaurants before turning his frustration with rush hour queues and staff shortages into a fully automated, sci-fi styled machine. He explains why the platform could also serve food, ice cream, and concert crowds, and how events for companies like Siemens and Philip Morris have become the main customers. He shares stories from the IFA fair, where people ignored rising cocktail prices just to watch the robot work, and from a Siemens event where a lost connection sent a drink splashing over a guest. He also recounts the machine arriving broken at Dubai World Expo and flooding the pavilion shortly before a royal visit. Alan walks through how an order works, from iPad menu to payment to a drink in 30 to 45 seconds, and describes engineering hurdles such as a compact ice dispenser and a patent-pending glass feeder. He closes with plans for robot bars worldwide and a search for investors.

A former nightclub operator built a sci-fi robot bartender that serves 100 drinks an hour, and people will pay 25 euros just to watch it work.

The questions, and the answers.

What are you building, and what problem are you solving?

I started in hospitality, running big nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. There is always one human on each side of the counter, and you never get drinks out fast enough in the rush hour. So we built Yanu, a fully automated standalone bar robot with a futuristic design. It can make 100 drinks an hour, faster and more fun than a human can.

Where did the idea for Yanu come from?

Running venues means working nights and doing paperwork in the morning. After COVID, finding staff was nearly impossible and salaries in the Western world are crazy. I had a motorcycle accident and, lying in the hospital, I thought about how to make things easier for venue owners and more fun for customers. That is where the idea came from.

Why bartending, of all the jobs a robot could do?

Mostly because it was the field I knew, with all its problems from the root. But the machine is really a platform. It can serve cocktails, beverages, ice cream, anything. We have ideas for serving people in the middle of a rock concert crowd, and for hotels that need 24 hour service, which usually means three shifts of staff.

Who is the first customer you picture, and who is already using it?

Honestly, all of them. We haven't advertised, yet we have up to 400 leads, from government agencies in Dubai to airports, hotel chains, nightclubs, and a major cruise company that wants it as an attraction. Events have been our main clients so far, including Siemens and Philip Morris, and Dubai World Expo gave us great exposure.

What do people say the first time Yanu serves them?

We were at the entrance of IFA, with about 500 people around us all the time. In Estonia a cocktail is around eight euros, so we started there, then raised the price to 15, 20, and finally 25 euros. Nobody cared. People mostly wanted the video of the robot making it, and some even left the drink and walked on.

Can you walk us through what happens from the moment someone orders to the moment the drink lands?

You pick a drink from a carousel menu on the iPad and pay by card, phone, or watch. Then the robot takes a glass, ice, and liquor, and a simple drink is done in 30 seconds, or 40 to 45 with more ingredients. It has one robotic arm and three ordering stations, and there is usually time left between orders.

What was the hardest engineering problem?

Two things. We couldn't find a small, fast ice machine with delivery anywhere, so a company in China built one that counts the cubes. The second is the glass feeder, which we invented and are trying to patent. Up top, about 1000 glasses sit in a revolver style system with 33 chambers of 33 glasses each, and gravity drops them down.