This Coffee Shop Has No Employees and Customers are Overpaying

Inside The Vault. Facebook photo

Could this work in Hillsboro? Jamestown? Even Fargo? Is this totally sixth wave?

David and Kimberly Brekke opened The Vault Coffee Shop & Bakery in Valley City, North Dakota, in October with an extremely unorthodox model: no staff. According to local WWLP news, David Brekke spent three-and-a-half years renovating a former bank building, outfitting it with tables, chairs, bookshelves and two pianos. The self-service bar includes a pod brewer, packaged pastries and a push-button espresso machine, a condiment station with granular sweeteners and syrups, and a refrigerator with creamers and packaged drinks.

(related: South Korea’s Cafe Dreamy May Be the Strangest and Coolest Cafe in the World)

The unmanned pay station includes a self-service card reader and a slot for checks and cash. David Brekke says he only found out “through Googling” that this was the only non-staffed coffee shop of its kind, telling WWLP that customers have on the whole overpaid by approximately 15 percent since the shop opened. Bless your hearts, good people of Valley City.

Aaron Boerner of WWLP News has the video: