Apparently the C30 does gas stations now too.
This one brought us right back home to Shakopee, where we had the opportunity to bring the CleanPro C30 into a local Holiday/Circle K and work with the owner, Bless.
And yes, his name is actually Bless.
Pretty fitting, because this could turn into a pretty awesome opportunity for us.
We have put these robots through apartment buildings, schools, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, casinos, salons, and plenty of other environments, but convenience stores gave us another completely different proof of concept.
When you think about a gas station, there is a lot happening in a pretty small footprint.
Coolers.
Shelving.
Stacks of bottled water.
Coke displays.
Food areas.
Customers coming and going.
People grabbing coffee.
People tracking in whatever Minnesota decided to throw at the parking lot that day.
And unlike a giant school hallway where the robot has plenty of room to stretch its legs, a convenience store makes it work a little harder.
There are tighter turns, narrower routes, displays sticking out, merchandise moving around, and a lot more little decisions for the robot to make.
Which is exactly why we wanted to try it.
We got the C30 mapped out and started sending it through the store, and honestly, the little guy looked pretty comfortable.
It was working its way between displays, cruising past the coolers, navigating around stacks of products, and handling the tiled floor without needing the entire store rearranged around it.
At one point it was rolling through the aisle with cases of bottled water on one side and displays on the other, and that is when you start realizing how useful the C30’s smaller footprint actually is.
There is not a whole lot of wasted space on this thing.
It just fits.
And of course, we had to make sure it knew where it was working.
So the face said:
Holiday.
The robot is apparently into customized uniforms now.
One of the things that makes a location like this interesting is how often those floors need attention.
A gas station is not a building that gets cleaned once in the morning and then politely stays clean all day.
People are constantly coming through.
Rain.
Mud.
Snow.
Salt.
Sand.
Food crumbs.
Whatever fell off somebody’s shoe after pumping gas.
The front door basically has a direct pipeline to the outdoors.
So the idea is not that the C30 runs once and saves the world.
The interesting part is being able to build repeatable cleaning routes that can run throughout the day while the employees stay focused on customers, stocking shelves, food, registers, and everything else that actually requires a person.
That is where autonomous cleaning starts to make sense.
The robot handles the boring repeatable stuff.
The people handle the people stuff.
Pretty simple.
And this demo also gave us another one of those moments we really like.
Bless did not just watch the C30 run around and say:
“Cool robot.”
He started thinking bigger.
He owns the location, understands the operation, and saw enough potential that he is reaching out to corporate to see if there could be a larger opportunity with Holiday/Circle K.
Now we are talking.
Obviously, one successful Shakopee demo does not mean we are putting robots in every Holiday tomorrow, and we are not going to pretend it does.
But this is exactly how those conversations start.
You prove it in one real location.
Someone who actually operates the business sees the value.
Then they start asking:
“Where else could this work?”
That question has opened a lot of doors for us already.
And if Bless can get the right people at corporate interested, we would love the opportunity to prove this again on a larger scale.
Because convenience stores make a lot of sense.
They have repeatable layouts.
They have constant foot traffic.
They have floors that need attention all day.
And they have employees whose time is probably better spent helping customers and running the store than walking the same tile with a broom or vacuum for the fifth time.
The C30 does not complain.
It does not get bored.
It does not care that it already cleaned that area earlier.
Tell it to go again and it goes again.
Honestly, that might make it the perfect gas-station employee.
Just do not ask it to work the register yet.
This was another one of those demos that reminded us why we keep saying yes to trying new environments.
Every time we put a robot somewhere different, we learn something.
Sometimes we prove exactly what we expected.
Sometimes the robot surprises us.
And sometimes the customer sees something bigger than we were even there to discuss.
That is what happened here.
We went to a Holiday/Circle K in Shakopee to see if the C30 could handle a convenience store.
It could.
Bless liked what he saw.
And now he is taking the conversation upstairs.
Local Holiday today.
Corporate conversation next.
Not a bad stop for the C30.
And Bless—if corporate wants to see it run…
You know who to call.
