The sweet clank of coins, and Foodstuffs ..... giant vending machines filled with an assortment of products. Kinda Snapple "Watch the Bottle Drop", only this time its a carton of Grade A eggs.
-- ferg, Aug 22 2002

2002: A Supermarket Odyssey http://www.halfbake...permarket_20Odyssey
Mechanization takes an ugly turn. [polartomato, Aug 23 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Baked In Spades http://www.nytimes....ational/28AUTO.html
Now we can definitely go home. It's been done. Everything from eggs to pantyhose. [DrCurry, Aug 28 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Automat http://www.hornandhardart.com/history.htm
[mrthingy, Aug 28 2002, last modified Feb 19 2005]

I think there would be problems. See shameless plug attachment.

On a side note, one of those damn vending machines ate my money today. Grrr.
-- polartomato, Aug 23 2002


bah the whole point would be that EVERYthing would be in a machine
-- ferg, Aug 24 2002


Actually, this might work with canned food and pre-cooked items, now that I think about it. Croissant. We sort of have something sort of like this at work. Maybe not the whole grocery though.
-- polartomato, Aug 25 2002


bah, everything would be checked and changed daily ... knit picking = bottom tier
-- ferg, Aug 26 2002


they used to have those "back in the day", like in the 30's and 40's, but there were only a few. you inserted a personalized coin into a slot and pressed a button and workers in the ceiling put all of your food together, and when you were ready to check-out they boxed up your food and slid it down a chute.
-- cods, Aug 26 2002


That was an Automat, as noted by mrthingy, though they didn't quite work like that (they still had one here when I first arrived). However, someone has put in a unit exactly as you describe in Washington, suspiciously close to your posting. I guess they read the Halfbakery.
-- DrCurry, Aug 29 2002


Not only is this not a new concept, but I used one of these machines as a young boy in the 1960s in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You inserted coins (lots of them - this predated dollar bill acceptors), then selected your grocery item. The machine was very large, probably 8 feet tall, wide and deep. The retrieval mechanism was on an x-y axis, operated by motors, relays and solenoids. Although it was quite clever, it was not a commercial success, due to the higher price of their goods, and mechanical failures. They had an edge initially - they were open 24/7 while other stores were closed on Sundays (yes, almost all were in the mid 60s) and holidays, and supermarkets always closed by 9PM. The coin-op grocery was in use for about a year or so, then sat empty and unused for another year or so, before finally being removed from the site. Next, ask me about the coin-operated egg vending machine in Hicksville, OH, or the coin-operated potato machine in Northern Indiana...
-- wallgamesdotcom, Oct 25 2003



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