The future may not feel particularly bright right now, but at least we know this: 24-hour Pizza ATMs are expanding across America. What a time to be alive, right? I mean, yes, there's a lot that's... uh... unnerving about the present; however, cheesy, readily available, pizza-tastic goodness is a tiny bit of positivity we can grab onto when needed. It's the little things, perhaps now more than ever.
Following a test run at Ohio's Xavier University last year, French company Paline has announced plans to open at least 20 locations throughout the United States and Canada, according to WCPO Cincinnati (via Grub Street). Some might even arrive within the next few weeks, giving us at least one thing to look forward to in 2017.
Though it may seem like magic, the logistics behind 24-hour pizza at your fingertips are pretty straightforward. Frozen pizza dough, fermented for two days and par-baked, is stored in a refrigerated section. Once you've chosen from the eight topping options, the pizza is transferred to a convection oven, where it cooks to perfection. And then it is ready for consumption. All within three minutes. Is it weird that I'm way more excited for this than I am for hoverboards?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pizza ATM is currently being marketed to colleges and universities because of its 24-hour access, customizable pizza options, quick turnaround, and lack of requirement for a human employee to run it.
The machine itself retails for $55,000 and holds 70 pizzas at a time. There's also the additional cost of actually making and stocking the pizzas, however, the responsibility of which falls to each individual ATM owner. The pies themselves will cost the average consumer $9.
At $9 a pie, this may not be the cheapest of meal options, but I'd bet it's the fastest way to get pizza into your mouth. Three minutes? I can't even make ramen that quickly. Plus, I have a suspicion most people are willing to drop a few extra dollars for a chance to feel, for a moment, like they're living in the kind of bright, idealistic utopia we all had hoped would become the future. We may not have much, but we do have pizza machines.
