People of a certain age remember when you could get a hot meal from a vending machine as long as you had a pocket full of nickels. These restaurants were called automats, and they consisted of coin-operated vending machines that contained food and drinks behind a glass window. Behind the scenes, workers prepared and replenished the meals, with the only visible employee being the person who made change for hungry customers. While popular at the start of the 20th century, automats soon fell to the wayside in the 60s with the rise of fast-food restaurants. However, with the need to limit human interaction as much as possible during COVID times, the idea behind these eateries is making a comeback of sorts. Cake lovers and fans of Buddy Valastro's Carlo's Bakery from the show "Cake Boss" have had access to Carlo's Bake Shop Express in Ottawa since November 2020. For $9.99 you can get a slice of either carrot, chocolate fudge, red velvet, or vanilla rainbow from a cake baked at Carlo's Bakery and shipped to the Cake ATMs at St. Laurent Shopping Centre, Rideau Centre, and Bayshore Shopping Centre. They say the cakes are restocked fresh daily, but Guest Services at the mall I called said due to the reduced foot traffic at the mall during the province's latest Stay-at-Home order, they haven't been restocked since April 8 - for the time being, people will still have to go into a bakery for a piece of cake. If it's pizza that you crave, the two locations of the Senate Tavern now have the ability to satisfy your hunger 24/7. The restaurants each have PizzaForno vending machines, stocked daily by the staff at the Senate Tavern, and they can make a pizza in about three minutes. The prices range from $9 to $13, with BBQ chicken pizza, Hawaiian, meat lovers, and vegetarian pizza being available; you can even take your pizza home cold and cook it yourself if you want. All you need is a debit or credit card with the tap feature. We may not have the variety of food vending machines that Japan has, but who knows what the future will hold if the cake and pizza ATMs catch on.
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