Ohio State University is beyond excited about its newest attraction. No, it’s not new lab equipment or a new technology center that officials are raving about. They are thrilled to announce they have installed a high-tech Pizza ATM on campus.
Welcome to the future.
Students can now rest assured that their pepperoni pizza cravings will be satisfied anytime between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. Ten-inch pizzas cost $8 and are ready in under four minutes. The personal pizzas are made in a nearby kitchen, loaded into the Pizza ATM’s refrigeration unit, and cooked in the ATM’s internal oven once they are ordered.
“Students love to eat at all times of the day and even at breakfast they can eat pizza,” Abby Hertzfeld, associate director of operations for the Office of Student Life Dining Services, said in a press release.
The move is part of an effort to bring greater value to its students.
“We are always looking for innovative and new ways to provide services to our students here at Ohio State,” said Abby Hertzfeld, associate director of operations for the Office of Student Life Dining Services in an article on the school’s website.
Luckily for these students, that innovation may come in the form of additional topping options (“I’ll have pepperoni with an extra THE, please.”) and perhaps even 24-hour service in the near future, according to the school.
Ohio is a bit of a trailblazer of sorts when it comes to Pizza ATMs. Ohio State joins Xavier University, a Cincinnati-based private Catholic university, which first introduced its own pizza ATMs back in 2016, and Case Western Reserve University, which rolled out its own Pizza ATM in 2017. Previously, Ohio State also featured a temporary bacon vending machine as part of a fundraising effort.
As would be expected, the Pizza ATM has been a hit with the campus community. Hertzfeld notes that the university has sold 400 pizzas in its first week alone.
The machine’s $55,000 price tag doesn’t seem to alarm officials, who expect to make some serious dough off of the machine. Pizza ATMs in other locations sell 40 pizzas a day and make as much as $90,000 in just one year of operation.
This new technology is sure to attract pizza-loving Gen Zers far and wide. Who needs university recruiters when you have technology like this?
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is writer from California. He is a National Journalism Center graduate and formerly served as a development officer for Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch.
