You can now order and pay for your Starbucks before you get to the store

Starbucks’ new mobile order and pay service makes it dangerously easy to slot a quick coffee into your daily commute.

As part of an update to the coffee chain’s mobile app, rolling out on October 1st, coffee addicts throughout the nation’s capital will be able to test out a new service that will let you order your beverage (or light bite) of choice, pay for it have and it ready for collection, all from your smartphone.

For the thousands of mobile users already making use of Starbucks’ mobile app, you’ll notice an updated order section in the top right of the interface that displays the full menu of edible and drinkable items. As with ordering in store you can choose the size of your beverage and tweak or change extras like cream or the number of shots accordingly before sending it through to be processed.

Placing an order through this new section of the app is the equivalent of joining the queue in store so you don’t have to wait at the back of a physical line when it comes to collecting your order, simply pick up your item(s) based on the ETA the app gives you – estimated by the distance between your device’s location and your store of choice, as well as factoring in walking or driving times.

Billing takes place based on your Starbucks account credit, which can be topped up as ever using an existing card or Apple Pay.

At launch mobile order and pay will be available at 150 branches throughout Central London, with plans to expand outwards as adoption picks up. Starting from Thursday you’ll be seeing badges, plinths and flyers highlighting the new service and for regulars, baristas will even hand personalised leaflets over to promote the new functionality as well.

The decision to bring this new service to the UK (the first international market on to offer it) follows on from an extremely successful US rollout, which saw a full launch take place three months ahead of schedule as a result of rapid user adoption, ending with New York City.

At launch the new service will be iOS only, but Starbucks’ plans to bring the feature to Android are already underway.