Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/08/university-installs-pizza-vend.html
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Hmm. Quaint. Why not order and pay by phone? (A QR code to take you to the order page.) Then it could say where you are in the queue, estimated time to pizza, and alert you when your order is next up. Some sort of system to only release the pizza to the correct person, and a time window before it gives away unclaimed pizza.
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How many employees were replaced by the vending machine? And does the price get better if you order two medium, or a large?
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Sounds like they have to add employees at Dining Services to mix the dough, shred cheese and load the thing.
The question I have is if this violates any competition clause for local business. Such as what type of business the state can open if it replaces existing privately owned vendor.
If I was a pizza place owner, I’d start keeping records of how many orders made in the past to that dorm and how much it dropped by after the machine was installed.
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60K for a machine that puts pizzas pre-assembled by humans through an oven? Damn, Univ of Florida, have I got a bridge to sell you!
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Well, I don’t have a smartphone, so that would immediately make it unusable for me.
Why limit your potential customer base when you don’t have to?
Still won’t beat frozen pizza from the local grocery store.
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I guess the key difference is that those employees don’t have to be on hand in the kitchen 24/7 in case someone wants a pizza at 3am.
Also to add that you probably don’t want pizza from most university dining services…
It’s probably worth it to pony up the extra $ to have delivery from some local joint that actually has good pizza. (looking at you Woodstock’s Pizza in Davis, CA)
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That did seem expensive, though I suppose someone did the math and it works out.
I just saw a wrapup column from a Toronto food critic,and she had a pizza out of a vending machine there, so it may be a trend.
They could always put a DVD vending machine next to the pizza machine, maybe a soda and snack machines too.
It may be expensive, but I don’t think absurdly so. Commercial infrared ovens look to be about $10k a piece and then you have whatever sort of refrigeration compartment that keeps the pizzas cold. Add on whatever automation is necessary to move the pizza is between the two and the interface. Also someone has to make some sort of profit on manufacturing this contraption.
And why not build an insecure, poorly maintained app to make the experience as bleeding edge as possible?
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(and Woodstock’s in Chico, CA, too!)
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It doesn’t have to be one or the other. There could be a online service and a manual interface.
Disclaimer. I have a pizza restaurant downstairs, so when I fancy a pizza I have a cheap and fast option.
A pizza freshly made is completely different compared to a precooked one and absolutely not junk food. On the contrary industrial pizza is not good.
Is that in your kitchen or are you saying you live above a pizzeria?
I suspect the latter.
how crappy is the UI on that vending machine if it needs instructions in a sheet protector taped to it?
I suspect that machine will become an attractive hacking target.
Do they have ovens in dorms?
I wonder what kind of on-campus market research – if any – was performed by the university beforehand. So many other ways to get pizza.
