What to get the city overflowing with convenient amenities? A 24-hour cupcake vending machine, that's what.
Sprinkles Cupcakes will open a cupcake vending machine -- a "Cupcake ATM" is what the company calls it -- outside its Georgetown bakery in August, according to The Washington Post. Cupcakes, selected on a touch screen then dispensed from the pink machine in a pretty box with the help of a robotic arm, will cost $4 each, and will be available in a host of flavors.
Beverly Hills, Calif., already has a Cupcake ATM -- check out the video above to see how it works.
Candace Nelson, Sprinkles' founder, told the Post she was pregnant when the idea for cupcake vending machines hit her:
“All I wanted at the time was cupcakes, but nothing was open at that hour,” she said. “I thought ‘I own a cupcake shop and I can’t even get my hands on one. Just think of all of those pregnant women out there who would love a cupcake vending machine.’”
New York and Chicago are among the nine cities that are due to get their own Cupcake ATMs, per the Post, which also reports that the machines cost $100,000 apiece. (That's 25,000 cupcakes.) Nelson told the Post that the Beverly Hills machine dispenses some 1,000 cupcakes per day. Fans love the machine there so much they broke it.
As befits a policy-minded town, D.C.'s Twitter reaction to news of this new offering has tended toward wonky: