It’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Genius, we say! A New York startup is stocking bars in the East and West Village with pretty, glowing phone charging stations. Plug in, place phone in locker, swipe a credit card to lock the door. You can even fish the phone back out using your card in order to text: “Hey, where are you guys? I’m in the back, by the pink and purple filing cabinet stuffed with iPhones.” 

“The obvious question was how you blend it in with a venue’s aesthetics,” Adam Johnson, cofounder and CEO of The Juicebox, told Fast Company. “How you make it sexy and not just some piece of shit box that’s plastered with ads and has ports hanging out of the bottom.”

The founders are former bartenders from “some of Manhattan’s most upscale bars and restaurants,” which perhaps explains the cryptic final question on their F.A.Q. (“You guys seem cool—can I hang out with you? No.”) They designed the 2 1/2 feet by 12″, brushed aluminum cabinet with frosted windows and a not-too-shiny touch screen, unlike their competitors:

It’s just $1 or $2 to charge right now. The phone charging station can be found at Central Bar and Agave in the East and West Village; the founders want to bring it to more venues including gyms, casinos and movie theaters, so you never have to say, “sorry, my phone died!” Oh, wait. There goes that excuse. Fuck.

Juicebox from juicebox on Vimeo.

Adrianne Jeffries is the editor of Betabeat. Follow Adrianne on Twitter or via RSS. ajeffries@observer.com