Seems like a fun concept. Who know maybe this will make its way to the U.S.?
Well, if you’re in Rome’s Nomentano district, between the University of Rome La Sapienza and the elegant Villa Torlonia, you’ll find a bright red vending machine tucked away on Via Catania. However, you won’t find bags of chips or cans of soda. The recently installed Mr. Go machine will prepare a fully cooked pizza in about three minutes.
The Mr. Go machine can make four different kinds of pizza—margherita, four cheese, spicy pizza alla diavola, and a pancetta-topped pie—and they cost between €4.50 ($5.50) and €6 ($7.30) each. According to The Guardian, it served its first made-to-order pie on April 6, and has sold about 900 of the single-serving pizzas in the days since.
“When I first saw the machine and learned about how it works, I totally fell in love with it,” Massimo Bucolo, the entrepreneur behind the machine, told the outlet. “And so I did a lot of research and spoke to a lot of food suppliers, ensuring that the ingredients would be of the highest quality. People are mocking the product without even having tried it.”
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Bucolo acknowledged to The Guardian, and said that Mr. Go orders aren’t meant to replace what you’d get from an actual pizzeria—it’s just meant to be a freshly made, inexpensive option for busy students at the nearby university, or for night shift workers who might be hungry when they clock out in the early morning hours. “We have neither the pretense nor the arrogance to consider our product equal to or better than a pizza made in a pizzeria,” Mr. Go said, according to El Periodico. “Our mission is to offer a valid alternative within the world of food.”
The pizzas are made to order, right after the customer inserts their money and presses the button. That prompts the machine to mix a combo of flour and water, press it into the appropriate pizza shape, and to add the toppings that have been vacuum-packed until that moment. Then it’s cooked at 380 degrees, transferred into a small box with cutlery, and dispensed to the customer, who’s barely had time to post about the entire process on Instagram.
Would you order pizza from a vending machine?
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Photo| iStock
