Food & Drink

Rome’s new pizza vending machine panned by critics

Pizza in a vending machine — Fuggedaboutit!

Rome’s new “Mr. Pizza Go” can cook four types of pizza in three minutes, but the early reviews are that the pies taste just like you’d expect from a vending machine.

“It’s OK but it’s not pizza,” university student Fabrizia Pugliese told Reuters after digging in.

Fabrizia Pugliese, a Naples native and university student in Rome, gave the machine-made pizza a try and gave it a thumbs down, saying it tasted more like a “piadina,” an ultra-thin soft unleavened bread wrap popular in northern Italy.

A pensioner named Gina, who didn’t give her last name, called it “terrible.”

“Pizza really needs to be eaten hot, immediately,” she said. “This doesn’t work for me.”

Fabrizia Pugliese collects her order at the first automatic pizza vending machine
Fabrizia Pugliese collects her order at the first automatic pizza vending machine on May 6, 2021. REUTERS

Pay the equivalent of $5.20-$7.20 and Mr. Go Pizza kneads the dough, adds toppings and then cooks it behind a small glass window.

“It looks good but it is much smaller than in a restaurant and there is less topping,” pensioner Claudio Zampigo told Reuters.

Go Pizza first vending machine for express pizza
Customers were not pleased with the quality of pizza from the new vending machine. Maria Laura Antonelli/AGF/Shutte

At a nearby restaurant that has a brick oven, there didn’t seem to be much curiosity about the new competition.

“I wouldn’t even think of eating a pizza made by a machine,” Giovanni Campana said.

With Post wires.