From Penny Gum to Smart Coolers: The Evolution of Vending
The smart cooler in your lobby has a 2,000-year family tree, and a surprising amount of it happened right across the Hudson. Here is how vending went from holy water to AI.
1st century: a coin for holy water
Hero of Alexandria described a machine that dispensed a measure of holy water when a coin dropped onto a lever. It is the earliest known vending machine (source).
1883: London postcards
Percival Everitt built the first modern coin-operated vending machine in London. It sold postcards.
1888: gum on New York's elevated train platforms
Thomas Adams put Tutti-Frutti gum machines on NYC's elevated train platforms. Commuters dropped a penny and got a piece of gum. It is considered the first vending machine in the United States (Wikipedia; Green-Wood).
1902–1991: the Automat
Horn & Hardart opened its first Automat in Philadelphia in 1902 and in Times Square in 1912 (source). Hot food sat behind small glass doors that opened with a nickel. The company once served about 800,000 people a day (Smithsonian). The last Automat, on East 42nd Street, closed in 1991 (Britannica).
Late 20th century: the classic snack machine
Spiral coils, coins and dollar bills. Reliable, but limited: a few dozen products, and little or nothing fresh.
2000s–2010s: cashless and the micro market
Card readers changed everything. In 2024, 71% of vending machine sales were cashless (Cantaloupe). Around 2009–2010, Jim Brinton launched Avanti Markets in Seattle, widely credited as the first micro market (he's known as the "father of the micro market"): open shelves and coolers with a self-checkout kiosk instead of a glass-front machine (VendingMarketWatch). A micro market can carry far more products than a vending machine, including fresh food.
Today: smart coolers
Smart coolers unlock with a tap of a card or phone and use weight sensors or cameras to know what you took. In Automatic Merchandiser's 2026 industry survey, they made up about a third of the equipment operators deployed (source). Snacks, cold drinks and fresh food, 24/7, with no cashier.
What's next
The Automat was a New York idea about fast, self-serve food. Smart markets are the same idea with modern payments. The Break Lane brings them to apartment buildings, offices and warehouses across New Jersey.
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