7-Eleven opened a store that sells fresh smoothies and street tacos on demand

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While the new “etail” companies such as Amazon toy with cashier-less, cash-less stores that are more like a robotic pantry than an actual store, that doesn’t mean the future of convenience shopping is a dystopian hellscape where your only (semi)human interactions are with your voice assistant.

7-Eleven, literally the franchise that put convenience into the convenience store, is going a different way. The chain just opened a “lab store” in Dallas, Texas, and it’s totally off the chain, man.

When was the last time you walked into a store and were actually greeted by the aroma of in-store fresh baked cookies that didn’t come from a can?

Yeah, I can’t recall either, but this new test store does just that. There’s also a selection of palatable wine, frozen yogurt next to the ubiquitous Slurpee machine, craft beer (including a testing area) and all the millennial-loved drinks that nobody in their right mind would actually drink if they weren’t suffering from pesticide poisoning, like kombucha, nitro cold brew, organic tea, cold-pressed juices, and even aguas frescas.

Image: 7-Eleven

Heck, there’s even a patio area with an in-store taco truck. Well, not really a truck but an in-store branch of the Laredo Taco Company, which 7-Eleven took over in 2018. Yes, that means there will virtually be a taco truck on (almost) every corner eventually if the lab store is successful. Think of it as an artisanal 7-Eleven. Maybe they’ll start calling the Slurpees “Hand-pulled” and offer flavors like avocado toast…

Image: 7-Eleven

A craft beer section with fillable growlers? Sign me up, it’s a far cry from the reheated, cooked-sometime-last-week hotdogs that are perpetually turning on the usual 7-Eleven countertop. Heck, maybe they could add an “adult-only” Slurpee range with craft beer, cocktails, and frozen tequila to go with the tacos. Where’s my royalty check, eh?

Oh, I guess I was wrong about the dystopian future hellscape. While the 7-Eleven lab store does have scan-and-pay tech that enables shoppers to pay with their smartphones without talking to a human, I think I’m okay with that if I can drink while eating tacos.

What do you think? Hope to see more of these locations pop up? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.