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New App Gives New Yorkers Unlimited Coffee for a Flat Fee

by ISRAEL21c |

When the Israeli app CUPS  was launched in Tel Aviv in 2012, its founders were right to be optimistic. A subscription service that provides users with the privilege of drinking unlimited cups of coffee at selected cafés, the app became a popular fixture among Tel Aviv consumers. Israelis aren’t the only ones who cherish their cappuccino, however, and CUPS has taken off overseas.

Launched in April in New York City, it’s been beefing up the Big Apple’s independent coffee shops and small franchises — such as Beans – which haven’t been able to hold a candle to mega-chains Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. So far, CUPS is partnered with more than 50 shops in Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan, and aims to spread to midtown and other boroughs. It is also in the process of negotiating with coffee shops elsewhere in the United States. The user-friendly app lists member coffee shops according to the user’s location – with the closest cafés at the top of the menu, and the distance to each clearly marked. When you enter one of these shops, you order your coffee and click “checkout” on the app. The server then enters a code on your smartphone.

For $45 a month, you get the “American Classic,” which includes all the percolated or filter coffee (and/or tea) you can drink – as long as you wait 30 minutes between cups. The $85 “Foreign Flair” subscription is for fancier lattes and iced drinks. It’s also possible to purchase packages of five, 10 or 20 cups for a three-month period. According to co-founder Gilad Rotem, who moved to New York to head the company’s American staff of four, CUPS is good not only for coffee-lovers, but for coffee-shop owners as well.

“For them, it’s a marketing platform,” Rotem tells ISRAEL21c at Pushcart Coffee in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, one of the establishments that honors the CUPS app. “Bringing a customer through the door means getting business they might not have had. In addition, coffee-drinkers also tend to buy other things on the menu, and often meet friends, who also become customers.” (via Israel21c)

[Photo: Sam Howzit / Flickr]

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