Crushed Red, the popular St. Louis-based salad and pizza chain, is experimenting with a new way of serving its guests: a self-serve pizza kiosk inside Lambert’s Terminal 2.
Co-founder/CEO Chris LaRocca says the pizza vending machine broke company records last week—during its debut at the airport—which happened to coincide with spring break.
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LaRocca says a particular pizza vending machine first caught his eye several years ago at a convention, where he was impressed with its simplicity and ability to produce a consistent, quality product. LaRocca was able to connect with HMS Host, which manages foodservice operations at the airport. “We both agreed that a small footprint vending machine would be a perfect fit…and could fit almost anywhere,” he says.
The self-serve kiosk, which LaRocca says are popular in Europe and Japan, holds 96 premade, 10.5-inch pizzas and turns out a finished, boxed product in three minutes. “We par-bake the shells, and HMS Host assembles the pizzas using our proprietary ingredients, stocks the machine, and monitors the usage. “The software even allows us to run specials on the fly, if we want,” LaRocca says. A customer places an order for one of six pizza varieties, a robotic arm removes the pizza from its box, loads it into one of two ovens, and places the cooked pizza back in the box. “The whole process is amazing,” LaRocca says of the pizzas that sell for $15 to $16. There’s also an option for baked-to-order chocolate chip cookies. Soft drinks and a handful of Crushed Red’s cold grab-and-go items are available at the kiosk, as well.
LaRocca says the road to the airport has been an interesting one. “First, the unit had to be shipped overseas, and it got lost here in St. Louis for 10 days,” he says. “We wanted to dial in the cooking process at our store in Chesterfield, which required taking off the storefront and putting it back on, twice. Ten days later, we trucked it to the airport, where their storefront and sliding glass doors had to be removed. It was a big production, but people are loving it, and HMS has been a 20 on a scale of 10 to work with.”
LaRocca adds “During the pandemic, like most restaurants, we were lucky to stay in business. Post-pandemic, my focus was reestablishing Crushed Red but also on growth opportunities in four areas: grocery stores, airports, universities, and hospitals. For the past two years, customers in 40 Schnucks stores could find a handful of our salads in the deli section. Our first pizza kiosk is now open at the airport, and Washington University has shown interest. I haven’t gotten to the hospitals yet.”
