It's finally here: a machine that automatically dispenses cupcakes opened up Tuesday in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. The cupcakes are accessible 24 hours a day.
The Cupcake ATM, located on Lexington Avenue between 60th and 61st streets, offers anyone a gourmet cupcake in a box for $4.25 each. The touch-screen machine was installed by Beverly Hills-based Sprinkles Cupcakes, which is located next door.
"Once a customer chooses a flavor they want, the robotic arm goes to that location, pulls the cupcake, keeps it level in its perfect little box and delivers it to the door and there you go," Mara Weber, from Sprinkles Cupcakes, told WCBS Newsradio, according to CBS News.
The machine has up to 20 different flavors, including peanut buttercup, red velvet, Cuban coffee and lemon meringue. The machine holds up to 760 cupcakes, CBS News reported. All it takes is the swipe of a credit card.
Charles Nelson, who founded Sprinkles Cupcakes with his wife, said the machine will be restocked with treats multiples times throughout the day, the New York Post reported.
"The cupcakes are as fresh as they are at the store," Nelson, 44, told the Post.
Nelson said he came up with the concept for the desert ATM when his wife, Candace, was pregnant.
"It was the middle of the night, and my wife really wanted a cupcake," Nelson told the Post. "I own a cupcake shop and couldn't even get a cupcake!"
Customer Melanie Glass also has late-night cupcake longings.
"I've craved cupcakes at 3 a.m. and I've been upset that Sprinkles has been closed," Glass said according to CBS News.
Sprinkles Cupcakes already has other cupcake ATMs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Dallas, the Post reported.
A spokeswoman for the company said they are planning on selling cookies and brownies in the machine by next month, WCBS Newsradio reported.
