Vending machines are no longer reserved for potato chips and candy bars. Higher-end offerings are springing up across the globe; some of the more bizarre examples to make headlines over the years (hat-tip Buzzfeed): a live crab vending machine in China, a banana vending machine in Japan, a burger vending machine in Moscow and a sake vending machine in Japan.
Now the latest one to go viral is “Corner Chips,” a pommes frites and mayonnaise dispensary in Belgium.
Outside a Brussels supermarket, customers can hand over €2.50 (about $3.35) for piping hot fries and their condiment of choice — mayo or ketchup, Atlantic Cities reports. The machine will cook frozen frites in steaming beef fat before depositing the snack into a paper cone. Hungry patrons need only wait a mere minute and a half for their food. A cage surrounds the whole contraption, protecting it from frites lovers who might try to take the contraption home.
But Corner Chips is far from the world’s first french fry vending machine. FoodCube in Australia and a dispensary in Israel both beat the Belgian food bot to the punch, according to Atlantic Cities. Nonetheless, Corner Chips may go international. The company already has requests on the comments section of its site from people offering to act as distributors in other countries.
Last year, a Berlin delicatessen launched a gourmet vending machine featuring pint-sized bottles of champagne, among other high-end snacks. Some Los Angeles malls began playing host to caviar vending machines around the holidays last year. And in the past year, the bakery Sprinkles’ cupcake ATMs—restocked every day with a variety of flavors—have been spreading from LA to Dallas, Chicago and D.C.
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