It’s a brisk 62 degrees on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in West Hollywood, CA. The scene takes place outside of a 7-Eleven located within a nondescript single-story strip mall with ample parking across from a sister Speedway gas station. A homeless woman lays on the ground outside as Snack-E, a custom-wrapped Serve Robotics delivery robot, approaches the store entrance. She smiles at the robot, and within seconds, a store clerk emerges with a bag of convenience items, punches in a code into the robot, and sends it off on its journey to a nearby customer. That customer is none other than yours truly, who recently discovered that the two companies have been working on a partnership after 7-Eleven’s venture arm 7-Ventures invested in the startup in December 2021. Over the past three months, Serve has been quietly fulfilling a small handful of deliveries per week from the West Hollywood store as its third pilot.