Did Starbucks jump the line on Square in mobile payments?

Starbucks announced today a new mobile app to be tested in its Portland, Oregon, stores that will allow customers to avoid lines by using the app to order and pay ahead of time, and then receive a specified wait time for in-store pickup.

The app, currently available only on the iPhone, will roll out to other stores nationally in 2015 when the company will also add an Android version.

Mobile payment is nothing new for the Seattle-based coffee giant: It is responding to demand for on-the-go payments, with 16 percent of Starbucks' sales reportedly going through mobile devices as of October.

What is new, perhaps is the level of consumer adoption the retailer has achieved. In 2012, Starbucks invested $25 million into San Francisco-based Square to have it handle mobile payments for Starbucks, via the Square Wallet. But Square reportedly lost $25 million in processing Starbucks payments in 2013, a tradeoff it made to gain exposure and promote use of its own Square Wallet app among Starbucks customers.

Square scrapped Square Wallet in May and replaced it with a food ordering app, Square Order. Today, as Starbucks launches its pilot, Square is announcing that it has added a mobile app for a startup it acquired called Caviar, which connects customers to restaurants to order food. Unlike Seamless, the app includes its own delivery team, so that restaurants don't have to worry about sending their own couriers.

Through such consumer-facing apps, Square is looking to supplement its merchant software business, which handles $30 billion in transactions annually.

Who's going to win the race in consumer adoption of mobile ordering? It looks like unlikely player Starbucks may be the one to watch.

After getting an MA in journalism from Syracuse University, Teresa worked as a general assignment newspaper reporter—general on purpose because besides the usual city hall and police articles, there was the chance to fly an F-18 with the Blue Angels and tag along with bounty hunters on a stakeout—all good preparation for covering entrepreneurs.