Italy is famous for pizza, but one entrepreneur noticed a hole in this otherwise very saturated market. Former pizza maker (or pizzaiolo) Massimo Bucolo noticed that there are plenty of places to get pizza in Rome, but virtually none of them work at night. “There was a hole in the market. Although Rome is an important city, there was nothing [foodwise] available through the night,” he told CNN Travel. “We never wanted to compete with a classic pizzeria.”
That’s how he came up with Mr. Go, the first pizza vending machine. Technically, what Mr. Go makes isn’t traditional pizza, as it uses piadina flatbread instead of dough. Bucolo admits that making real pizza in the vending machine would be impossible because that process requires a skilled chef and a wood-fired oven.
The first Mr. Go sits in a residential part of Rome, the capital of Italy, called Piazza Bologna. Bucolo is testing the market by putting the machine nearby a student area and a hospital, as he believes people there need nighttime food options. You can choose among four types of pizza, including a classical Margherita, Quattro formaggi with four types of cheese, spicy salami, and pancetta (basically premium bacon).
