Pizza vending machine operates 24/7 at Cincinnati restaurant location
CLIFTON HEIGHTS, Ohio (WKRC) - A new pizza vending machine in Clifton Heights is getting a lot of attention on social media. It sits outside of Mac's Pizza Pub and serves warm pizza any hour of the day, seven days a week.
You can order on the app, or in person. They have a lot of options including pizza, wings, desserts and even Mac's t-shirts.
In about 3 minutes, it warms up the pizza for you and sends it out.
Mac Ryan, the owner of Mac's, says he did a year of research to figure out exactly what kind of machine he wanted. He says he got the idea during the COVID-19 pandemic when restaurants were trying to adapt. Then, he felt the impacts of the labor shortage and machines like this are easy for his staff to use.
"We make a little barcode so the robotic arm that's inside the machine knows exactly when I put this into it," Ryan said. "There's a yellow robotic arm and as soon as I shut this door that robotic arm starts to do an immediate inventory, knowing exactly what's in here at all times."
The vending machine has only been in operation for eight days; it opened the day before University of Cincinnati students went home for the summer.
Ryan says this is the only pizza vending machine in the area right now, but there will be two more machines installed on UC's campus by next school year.
"The reaction has been confusion, amazement like, 'Is this real? Can I really actually do this?'," Ryan said.
"I've been blown away, there was one day I just sat here for 12 hours and as people walked by I would point out what it was and walk them through it because nobody has ever seen anything like it. Day or night, young or old UC student, anybody... they all go by and they're like, 'Is that what I think it is?'"
He says his staff will stock the machines on UC's campus, too.
Ryan says this is really going to be a game-changer on busy days during UC's school year and gamedays when they are packed in the restaurant, but people still really want a pizza.
