Hospitality
Your guests check in after the gift shop closes.
A hotel micro market from 8Kava replaces the staffed sundry shop with a lobby pantry that never closes. Smart coolers and self-checkout sell drinks, food and travel basics, paid by tap, wallet or room charge, and nobody at the front desk has to run a register.
- open, no register
- 24/7open, no register
- door release after a tap
- < 1 sdoor release after a tap
- to a finished receipt
- 10 sto a finished receipt
What changes when the register goes
| Staffed gift shop | 8Kava lobby pantry | |
|---|---|---|
| Hours | Whatever payroll allows | 24/7 |
| Labor at the point of sale | A clerk, or the front desk covering | None |
| Payment | Cash, card, room charge at the desk | Tap, mobile wallet, Kava app or QR, room charge |
| Shrink control | Someone watching | Locking doors and vision-plus-weight checkout |
| Assortment decisions | Last year's order form | Item-level sales and forecasts by property |
| Space | A room with a door | A 54-inch C2-XL plus a countertop kiosk |
Some hotels keep a staffed shop for daytime retail and add a pantry for the overnight hours. Both can work; the sales data will show which one earns its square footage.
Charge it to the room, without a trip to the desk.
Guests expect to sign for things. We set up room charge per property: Kava OS posts each purchase to the guest folio through its open API and webhooks, so your property management system treats the pantry like any other outlet. We scope that connection during the site assessment, before anything is installed.
Guests who'd rather tap can use a contactless card or mobile wallet. Either way the door releases in under a second, the receipt lands within 10 seconds of closing it, and nobody pays a cashless convenience fee. Bring your own processor at no markup, or use Kava Pay at interchange-plus 0.35% + $0.05.
- Purchases post by outlet, so night audit sees the pantry the way it sees the bar.
- Accurate charges mean fewer folio disputes at checkout.
- Sales export as CSV or Parquet for finance and ownership reports.
The lobby pantry, piece by piece
Kava Cooler C2-XL
Cold drinks, sandwiches, salads and breakfast behind two locking glass doors, up to 480 items. $8,400, or $259 a month.
Kava Kiosk K1
Self-checkout for open shelves of snacks, toiletries, chargers and fruit, with vision for items that have no barcode. $2,900, or $99 a month.
Kava Lockers LX
Guest order pickup and after-hours handoffs, with heated and refrigerated compartments for meals from your kitchen.
Kava Box B160
For resorts and extended-stay properties: a walk-in store with up to 700 items that fits in a lobby or a parking space.
Kava Vend V4
Pool decks and fitness rooms, with a 21.5-inch touchscreen and guaranteed vend that refunds automatically if nothing drops.
Built for how hotels run
No new hire
Your operator restocks from a pick list, or Managed Operations runs the pantry end to end. The front desk stays a front desk.
Ready for the group block
A conference arriving Thursday? Raise par levels for those dates in Kava OS and the pick list follows, so the group doesn't empty the cooler on night one.
Your own screen
The cooler's 10.1-inch door display can promote the hotel restaurant, bar or breakfast hours, or carry paid retail media with a revenue share.
Less waste, less energy
Expiry-aware markdowns cut fresh-food waste by 33%, and adaptive compressor scheduling cuts energy per refrigerated unit by 19%.
One view for the portfolio
Each property is its own store in Kava OS, with roles for general managers, finance and ownership.
Guest privacy
Recognition runs on the device and looks at products, not guests. No images of faces are stored or sent.
One night in the lobby pantry
- 10:00 p.m.
The gift shop would have closed
The pantry keeps going. The bar crowd picks up water on the way to the elevators.
- 12:35 a.m.
A late arrival
A delayed flight lands a guest at the desk after midnight. Toothpaste, a sandwich and sparkling water, charged to the room.
- 5:10 a.m.
An early departure
A guest on the first shuttle takes yogurt and cold brew with the desk empty behind them.
- 6:30 a.m.
Markdowns go live
Salads that expire today drop in price within your guardrails, before the breakfast rush finds them.
- 10:00 a.m.
Restock
The operator arrives with a pre-kitted tote built from last night's sales, and is gone before afternoon check-ins.
Why an unstaffed pantry holds up
What does it cost every time a guest asks the desk for a toothbrush?
Each request pulls the only person at the desk away from check-ins, phones and the lobby. Multiply that by every late arrival who forgot a charger or wants a cold drink. Guests want the item; nobody wants the transaction. Which requests at your front desk could a cooler handle without a conversation?
Hotel micro market FAQ
Can guests charge purchases to their room?
Yes. We set up room charge per property: Kava OS posts each purchase to the guest folio through its API and webhooks, and we scope the connection to your property management system during the site assessment. Guests can also pay with a contactless card or mobile wallet.
Can the pantry sell beer and wine?
That depends on your state, county and license, and unattended sales of age-restricted products need ID checks your regulator accepts. We'll review the rules for your property with you before planning it; our guide to age-restricted products explains the concepts. If the rules don't fit, keep alcohol at the bar and stock the pantry with everything else.
How much lobby space does it take?
A double-door Kava Cooler C2-XL is 54 inches wide, 32 inches deep and 80 inches tall, and it runs on a standard 115 V outlet. A Kava Kiosk K1 mounts on a countertop or pedestal next to open shelving.
Who restocks it, and when?
Your current operator can run the pantry on Kava OS with pre-kitted pick lists, or Managed Operations can stock, clean and service it. Restocks are timed for your quiet hours, not your lobby's busiest ones.
Does it work across a portfolio of hotels?
Yes. Each property has its own planogram, prices and reports, and portfolio roles see all of them. The Enterprise plan adds SSO via SAML/OIDC, volume pricing from 250 devices and a 99.95% uptime SLA.
Where to go next
Turn the dark gift shop into the busiest corner of the lobby.
Tell us your room count, your lobby layout and your property management system. We'll come back with a format, a room-charge plan and the numbers.