Amazon To Offer Hot Food, Espresso, Fountain Soda In California Convenience Store

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN is planning to increase the food and beverage options at one of its brick and mortar stores in California.

What Happened

The e-commerce giant will offer hot food, espresso, and fountain sodas in its 300 California Street Amazon Go store in San Francisco, it told employees in an email, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The store is currently closed for renovation.

Amazon will require additional permissions from the city officials for the new offerings, the Chronicle noted. The company reportedly filed for a Department of Health review on January 21.

A Chicago store at 113 S. Franklin Street is also closed for renovation, its website shows. It remains unclear whether Amazon plans to expand the menu here as well, but the website displays the same message -- "We'll be back with new features and flavors in the Spring --" as it does for the San Francisco store.

Why It Matters

Amazon's decision comes at a time when retailing giants are aggressively spreading the food options in their convenience stores to increase their appeal.

Quick service stores are seeing a rise in their revenue from food items, as CNN reported earlier this month, citing data from the National Association of Convenience Stores.

Trips to fast-food restaurants like McDonald's Corporation MCD and Domino's Pizza DPZ require a time commitment that the millennials aren't willing to make, the report said.

It remains to be seen how Amazon will implement the changes without hurting its operational model of faster services and minimal staff interaction. The Amazon Go stores work on a grab and go model with no checkout requirements.

Price Action

Amazon's shares closed 0.26% higher at $1,858. The shares were up another 0.31% in after-hours trading.

Photo Credit: Public domain photo via Wikimedia.