Coffee on Cue has spent 12 years redefining coffee as more than just a beverage, using it as a tool for connection and culture. Ryan Spaccavento founded the company as a single coffee cart, and has grown it into an event-driven coffee service that uses specialty café-quality brews to elevate conferences, trade shows, and activations.
Today, Coffee on Cue runs seven permanent workplace cafés across Melbourne and Sydney and delivers over 100 events per month, making it a leader in Australia’s corporate hospitality space. From launching their own coffee blends to pioneering the Energy Rejuvenation Program for coffee waste in Australia, Coffee on Cue has innovated nonstop.
The Role of Digital Payments
Coffee on Cue runs a cashless operation across both workplace sites and events. “Digital payments are the backbone of our business,” says Ryan, “They give us speed, efficiency, transparency, and the ability to scale.” Coffee on Cue uses digital Square Point of Sale terminals at each site, Stripe and Airwallex for B2B transactions, and Shopify, PayPal and Google Pay for direct-to-consumer e-commerce sales and subscriptions.
The company also leverages Trustindex, Google Reviews and a remarkable collection of testimonials and brand partnerships that they post to their website to foster trusted feedback to inform potential customers.
This digital ecosystem gives Ryan live dashboards to track cups served, peak times, and labor allocation, helping optimize productivity and client value. Clients can be shown data reports, helping the brand build trust and accountability. Digital payments have also enabled rapid provisioning: new locations can be operational in an afternoon, improving scalability and ensuring a consistent experience across locations.
Challenges & Opportunities
In the low-margin hospitality business, Ryan has found that costs can quickly stack up. “Policymakers should understand that hospitality runs on tight margins.” Ryan suggests incentives tied to environmental or community outcomes to help small businesses who are on the edge of profitability.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for events and workspace solutions crashed, nearly ending the business. Due to creativity, hard work, and the agility of the digital tools he employed, Ryan was able to pivot to e-commerce, coffee subscriptions, and virtual masterclasses for companies like HubSpot.
This resilience and creativity have made Coffee on Cue a national brand, and they continue to shape its current strategy. Ryan sees an opportunity to expand internationally as workplace hospitality becomes increasingly valued worldwide. The core of the business has always been bigger than workplace brews. “Coffee is the conduit to conversation,” explains Ryan. “In an increasingly online world, we need spaces for authentic human connection — and that’s what hospitality, powered by digital payments, enables.”
