US university unveils country’s first ‘Pizza ATM’

Tired of resorting to making the same old cup of instant noodles when the late-night munchies strike and you’re too hungry to wait for the deliveryman?

Not to make you jealous, but students at one Midwestern U.S. university will soon have the option of getting fresh-from-the-oven pizza – just steps away from their residence hall.

The Ohio-based Xavier University recently installed a US$55,000 Pizza ATM on campus at Fenwick Place to help cure their students’ cravings, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The university’s Assistant Vice President Jude Kiah told the Cincinnati Enquirer: “We were looking for a way to solve this problem of having a late-night pizza option on campus, and this meets our students where they’re at in their residence hall.”

Kiah added that the university also liked the idea of being innovative and trying something new, saying, “There’s one Pizza ATM in the U.S. and this is it.”

So how does the Pizza ATM work? Apparently, all students have to do is input the pizza toppings they want on their pizza into the machine and wait about three minutes for it to cook the pizza in a convection oven.

Once the pizza is done, the machine puts it into a box and delivers the pizza into the waiting hands of a hungry student.

Prices are also similar to those offered at the usual pizza joints – one medium-sized pizza (12”) costs US$9.

The machine can be filled with up to 70 pizzas at a time, assembled by the university’s dining service staff.

Staff will also receive a notification informing them when the machine is running low on pizzas, so they can refill it before it is empty.

Though the Pizza ATM is nothing new for those in Europe, Xavier University partnered up with Paline, the machine’s exclusive North American distributor, to bring it to their campus.

And if you’re worried about getting a soggy pizza, rest assured that according to Paline owner Alec Verlin, the company has made sure to provide sufficient training, so that pizzas coming out of the ATM “would be similar to ones coming out of high-quality pizza ovens”.

Kiah agreed with Verlin, adding: “This machine delivers a pizza which is really second to no other pizza I’ve had. It’s serving the exact same quality pizza that’s in the dining facility.”

Image via Unsplash

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