The restaurant installs Britain’s first pizza machine

A business owner has revealed how he installed the UK’s first pizza vending machine to keep his business alive amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Bristol-based Sina Kiaei said he was trying to find ways to adapt his Pizza Bella restaurant to changing times after being forced to close his business for two months during the initial lockdown.

Sina told Bristol Live: “I came across it, it just started in France and I had this shipped from France.” It has been open since Monday and everyone is already loving it. ”

The vending machine offers a large selection of fresh pizzas, which can be ordered via a touchscreen and are prepared in just three minutes.

The machine, which is operated via a touchscreen, moves fresh pizzas from a refrigerator into an oven in order to bake them in just three minutes (in the picture, a satisfied customer, Jonathan Davis).

Sina said he was amazed at the success of the machine after installing it earlier this week

Sina came up with the idea when he was thinking about how to adapt this business to new regulations introduced due to the Covid-19 crisis.

He said: “We were closed for two months when we were first locked and I had plenty of time to think about how to adapt to the changing times.”

His first idea was to create a drive-through system, but this was not possible due to the location of his restaurant on a main road.

He said the machine had been shipped from France, where the rising trend in pizza machines had already proven to be a success.

Sina said he came up with the idea for the machine after his restaurant had to close during the first Covid-19 lockdown

Sina was pleased with the fact that a lot of people seemed to be using the machine, even after midnight, a time when the restaurant was usually closed.

There is a large refrigerator in the machine, which can hold up to 96 fresh pizzas in the refrigerator for 48 hours.

The machine works with a stocking app that shows the team which pizzas are running quickly and which need to be refilled.

Sina explained that the restaurant makes pizza during the day before the vending machine refills.

The store owner announced that the vending machine was working 24 hours a day, seven days a week (pictured, a customer, Erik Aremyr, shows how to order the pizza using the touchscreen).

Pizzas are kept in refrigerators for up to 48 hours before they are ordered. An app tells Bella Pizza which pizzas are popular and which meals may need to be replenished

After customers order their meal on the touchscreen, they have to wait three minutes for their pizza to be delivered

He said it allows the team to ensure that there are both vegetarian and vegan, as well as meaty options.

When a customer makes a selection on the touchscreen, the machine bakes the pizza on the ovens before pushing it back into a box and serving it.

Thanks to the two ovens and two slides, the pizza can work on two pizzas at the same time, which shortens waiting times for hungry customers.

Pizza Bella shared the news on Facebook and wrote, “Don’t let the lockdown get you!

“Take a walk and try a hot and fresh pizza from our easy-to-use pizza machine!”