The Human Bean Made a Transformers-Like Coffee Truck

All photos courtesy of The Human Bean

While coffee retailer The Human Bean has buttered its bread almost exclusively through convenient company- and franchise-owned drive-through locations since its first store opened in Ashland, Ore., 17 years ago, it’s now toasting a mobile truck that has Transformers-like capabilities.

Working with local companies around Fort Collins, Colo., the company recently unveiled the Human Bean Coffee Truck. If not the most sophisticated mobile unit purely in coffee preparation terms, the truck is nonetheless tricked out beyond any mobile coffee unit we’ve seen, with features including a front seat that converts into a desk, a flatscreen monitor to project nearby events, a NASA-inspired restroom with zero-gravity waste flow, and solar panels to power inner machinery as well as a charging station for guests’ smartphones.

Most impressive of all — and made possible through The Human Bean’s collaboration with Fort Collins-based Custom Cart Solutions — may be its ability to transform into the spitting image of a brick-and-mortar Human Bean location, through rear towers and large service flaps that drop down to cover the truck’s wheels and underside.

Parked outside Colorado State’s main athletics facilities, the truck has become a mainstay during this fall’s football games, supporting The Human Bean’s role as “the official sponsor of CSU Athletics,” although The Human Bean team plans to take advantage of the truck’s inherent mobility through appearances at special events around campus.