Hot pizza vending machines are Buddy Valastro’s latest innovation in Las Vegas

If you’ve ever been to one of Caesars Entertainment’s casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, you’ve seen the colorful, slice-of-cake ATMs at Carlo’s Bakery — temperature-controlled vending machines dispensing favorite flavors from the bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey, made famous by the TV series become Cake Boss.

They have become ubiquitous here and across the country, and can also be found in several malls in the Valley. And the vending machines are just one sign of baker and TV personality Buddy Valastro’s recent business growth in Las Vegas.

Valastro, who began working in the family business at age 11 — the original Carlo’s Bake Shop opened in 1910 and was purchased by his father in 1964 — became a culinary celebrity following his starring role Cake Boss on TLC and on to several hit Food Network shows. He teamed up with Las Vegas-based hotel stars Elizabeth Blau and Kim Canteenwalla to open his first restaurant, Buddy V’s, at the Venetian in 2013, along with an outpost of Carlo’s Bakery.

“When we started Buddy V’s, I didn’t think we had the best location, a little off the beaten path,” says Valastro of the restaurant’s space at the Grand Canal Shoppes. “But I believe if you produce a quality experience and let people know, they will find you, and Buddy V’s has continued to grow.”

Next came cake machines, but in recent years Valastro’s Vegas operation has exploded with three more casual restaurants. Just before the pandemic shut down, he opened the Strip’s PizzaCake joint at Harrah’s and last year opened Boss Café and Buddy’s Jersey Eats at the Linq.

Well-known East Coast-style Italian favorites like pizza, sandwiches, wings and those signature sweets are available at the new locations, and last summer Valastro restaurants partnered with LBX Food Robotics to launch an innovative hot food vending operation that will… Bakery style pizza served at Boss Cafe. The Bake Xpress machines are also at the Linq.

Valastro says he was initially skeptical about the vending business, but the cake slicers quickly caught on. “I did it with a handshake and bet three [machines] in Toronto, and they shipped 50,000 slices of pie in a month and a half,” he says. “We’ve invested in the packaging to better control the atmosphere because the cake doesn’t contain any preservatives and we’ve increased the shelf life from 3-5 days to 20-25 days and the product is still top-notch. Once I knew that, I had to take it to Vegas.”

The Hot Food expansion was inspired by the idea of ​​offering a warm cookie from a vending machine, and the Boss Café’s unique focaccia-style pizza proved a good fit for the new machines.

“We’ve always talked about whether it wouldn’t be cool to be able to deliver hot food, and we knew the technology was out there, but it wasn’t readily available until a few years ago,” says Bryan Forgione, the managing director of the company’s managing director. “We figured it out, and now it holds up to 70 slices of pizza that we make fresh every day.

“We load the machine and it runs 24 hours. You choose your piece, a robotic arm grabs it and delivers it to an infrared oven that knows exactly what to do. It takes a few minutes and the door opens and you have a hot, crunchy slice of pizza to take to your room.”

Forgione started with Valastro as Executive Chef at Buddy V’s and recently traveled to New Orleans to open a second PizzaCake location in a food hall at Harrah’s Casino. He says 2023 will be another exciting year for the company, with concepts soon to appear in Pompano Beach, Fla. and Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The pizza machines could follow the example of the cake machines and expand as well. “We have an idea in the works on how to scale this up,” says Forgione. “We took our time there, a lot of trial and error and pizza for pizza. It’s not just about making something convenient, because if it’s practical but not very good, what’s the use?”

The company also maintains an off-Strip headquarters where products are shipped and stocked, somewhat of a distribution center for Valastro’s local restaurants and bakeries.

“We want to do more in Vegas and I have a great team out there,” says Valastro. “I believe in the market and when we come up with these new concepts people are receptive. We’re all in. And I like to do things that I feel like aren’t there yet, missing links.”

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