Cupcakes, at the Touch of a Button and the Swipe of a Card

We all knew this day would come eventually.

Sprinkles, the trend-starting LA bakery, has unveiled the world’s first cupcake ATM. Yes, a machine that will dispense your choice of cupcake at any hour of the day or night. All you need is a finger and a credit card.

It’s called “24 Hour Sprinkles”, and this little pink machine is a quiet and unassuming electronic sentinel that stands guard over a 600-piece stash of cupcakes hiding behind a wall of multi-colored metal mesh. Cupcakes cost $4.00 each; inventory is refreshed daily. That sounds like an awful lot of cupcakes to have just sitting around, waiting for someone to buy them. You think they move that much inventory in 24 hours? I don’t really know anything about the LA cupcake market.

The Huffington Post sent a reporter to the Sprinkles Cupcake ATM and took it for a test drive – the video is below. Lucy selects her flavor, swipes her card, and the magic begins. It’s actually kinda cool watching the machine webcam as it shows the mechanical arm select the pre-boxed pastry and move it to the dispensing window, where it pops out for Lucy’s eating pleasure.

According to their Facebook page, 24 Hour Sprinkles has received quite a bit of media attention already – HuffPost, The Insider, and even Chelsea Handler did a segment about it on her show (Nope. I still won’t watch that booze-and-pill-induced borefest). Sprinkles is also taking fan requests on their page for other Cupcake ATM’s locations.

According to CNN Money, cupcake ATM’s will be making their way to Sprinkles locations in New York City, Chicago, and Washington DC. (h/t to Sarah for the story). It’s a nifty little piece of technology. Kinda makes me wish we had one here in the Capital Region of NY. Someone needs to get to work and create something like this here!

Do I, avowed cupcake hater that I purport to be, sound a little too excited about this new piece of technology? Perhaps one of these days I’ll share with you my secret cupcake shame. My Twitter followers probably already know all about it.