Cugino Forno Debuts Pizza Vending Machine in North Carolina

Cugino Forno has installed its first pizza vending machine at Incendiary Brewing in Lewisville, North Carolina, putting the pizzeria's food within reach of customers around the clock. The Greensboro-born company, which has expanded across the Piedmont Triad, is using the Lewisville site as its first test of the automated format. Customers place an order and pay through a touchscreen. The machine then retrieves a chilled pizza, heats it, boxes it and dispenses it in roughly three minutes. The unit can hold as many as 66 pizzas at a time. Co-owner Yilmaz Guver sees the machine as a way to extend Cugino Forno's reach beyond its restaurant walls. The concept allows the company to keep serving customers when a traditional kitchen is closed, and to place its pizzas in venues that have no food operation of their own. For operators, the launch is another example of restaurant brands moving into unattended retail. Breweries and taprooms, with long hours, captive foot traffic and no kitchen staff, have become a proving ground for hot-food vending, following similar debuts from Goodfellas in Ontario, Speedy Pie in Iowa and California Pizza Kitchen at Dayton airport. Source: Vending Times — https://www.vendingtimes.com/news/cugino-forno-debuts-pizza-vending-machine-in-north-carolina/