Pizza from a vending machine

Julia Buckley

In Rome,the art of pizza is up there with the art of constructing buildings that will last for 2,000 years,and guiding one of the world's major religions.

Compared to the original Neapolitan style,Roman pizza is thinner,flakier and crunchier,since it's baked for a little longer.Now there's another kind of Roman pizza,however—and it comes out of a vending machine（自動販賣機）.

Rome's newest pizzaiolo（pizza-maker）,Mr Go,is a vending machine pumping out four types of pizza whenever you feel like one.Comparing to the weekly closures and afternoons off of regular pizza restaurants,Mr Go's metal“hands”can produce pizzas all the time without feeling tired.The machine is the brainchild of entrepreneur Massimo Bucolo,a Sicilian living in Rome.“There was a hole in the market—although Rome is an important city,there was nothing foodwise available through the night.We never wanted to compete with a classic pizza restaurant,”said Bucolo.

In fact,Bucolo said it's not even a real pizza.That's because,he freely admitted,true pizza—tossed（翻動）by hand and seared（輕煎）in a wood-fired oven—doesn't exactly lend itself to a vending machine.

“It would be crazy to say that a machine could make a real pizza in three minutes.I've had lots of criticism,but I never said everyone would love this.It was an idea to create something that wasn't there:pizza at night.The products can get better,and we can change them or change the machine,but it's catering to（迎合）a need,”Bucolo said.

Reading Check

What's Bucolo's attitude to his products in the future?