Pizza ATM Serves Up Fresh Pies At Case Western Reserve University

CLEVELAND, OH—It might well be a college student’s dream come true: An ATM that serves up fresh, handmade pizza. For engineering and technology students at Case Western Reserve University, they have exactly that in the new think[box] incubator space.

It takes a mere 3 minutes from the time a student dips a credit, debit or CWRU dining card into the slot on the front the hulking machine to get a fresh, 12-inch pizza. The pizza ATM uses a series of conveyor belts and mechanized arms to ferry a pizza from a refrigerated space into a convection oven. Once cooked, a boxed pizza slides out a chute, ready as lunch or a midnight snack.

That’s the beauty of the machine, says Beth Nochomovitz, the director of auxiliary services for CWRU. For now the building is open just during daytime hours, but eventually it will be open 24 hours. Then, students in the building, which houses a variety high-tech tools and machines for students to tinker with, are likely to be there at odd hours of the day and night. So instead of trudging outside the building, they can simply go to the break area on the building’s second-floor and buy a pizza from the machine.

While the university owns the machine, campus food service provider Cafe Bon Appetit keeps it filled with fresh, pre-made pizzas. Bon Appetit chefs can remotely monitor the machine, and refill it as necessary and remove any unsold pizzas, which have a 70-hour shelf life.

The pizza ATM offers three varieties: cheese, pepperoni and veggie, but customers can’t be too picky about the toppings, Nochomovitz said. “They can’t say, ‘give the me the veggie, but hold the onions,’” she said, explaining the pizzas are pre-made and can’t be changed.

As students try out the pizza ATM, the Bon Appetit chefs are likely to offer different varieties of pizzas, said Bon Appetit spokeswoman Amanda Mass. The pizzas currently cost $10.50 each, but the prices may change as the varieties change, she said. (To stay up to date on local stories, subscribe to the Patch Cleveland newsletter. As news breaks and the story develops, you will be the first to receive updates from Patch.)

The university is the second in the nation to have such a machine, she said. The first is Xavier University in Cincinnati. Before buying the machine, CWRU staff visited Xavier to get a taste test, Nochomovitz said.

And so far, the reviews of the pizza ATM are good.

“The students seem to love it,” Nochomovitz said. “They’ve been getting a lot samples as we try it out. … I had veggie pizza for lunch yesterday, and I thought it was excellent.”

Photos courtesy of Case Western Reserve University