Xavier University has partnered with France-based Paline to bring the first Pizza ATM to North America.
Pizza ATMs have been operating in Europe for 14 years, usually in small towns where restaurants close early, at gas stations or at pizzerias for 24-hour service, a spokesman for Paline told our news partner WCPO.com.
The Pizza ATM is being installed in the lobby of Fenwick Place just outside Xavier University’s Hoff Dining Hall and will be stocked with 70 pizzas at a time.
Here’s how the Pizza ATM will work:
- Cooks prepare a vegan dough and let it rise for two days.
- The dough is kneaded, flattened into 12-inch round crusts and partially baked.
- Vegan tomato sauce is made in-house, and all the toppings are prepped in the dining hall too.
- Cooks top the crusts with eight varieties of toppings and load them into the refrigerated section of the ATM.
- The hungry customer is greeted by a large touch screen, selects a pizza and pays by sweeping a student debit card or a credit card.
- The machine moves the pizza to a disc, juke-box style, into the convection oven that's fired up to 475 degrees. When it's done, the pizza is placed in a cardboard box, which ejects through a slot.
Total time from ordering to cooking is three minutes, and the pizzas will cost $10 each, according to the company.
If this conjures up images of vending machine pizza, think again.
“It is the best pizza I’ve ever had, and I hate to admit that as a New Yorker,” Jennifer Paiotti, marketing director of XU’s auxiliary services, told WCPO.
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