French Cuisine… From a Vending Machine?

In the in-between places — not quite countryside, not quite city — restaurants keep odd hours. Especially pizzerias, which tend to open from about 7 to 10 p.m. And that’s if they’re open.

So what happens when it’s 3 p.m., the shops are closed, lunch was hours ago, and dinner feels emotionally far away?

Apparently, the French go to the pizza vending machine.

Yes, this is a real thing. You walk up, press a few buttons, and three minutes later — voilà — out pops a hot pizza, made entirely inside the machine. Not reheated. Made. Dough, sauce, cheese, the whole thing, quietly assembling itself while you stand there rethinking some assumptions.

We’ve also seen one that dispenses French tacos, which are a separate fever dream entirely — imagine a grilled burrito stuffed with meat, fries, and melted cheese sauce, then folded with great confidence.

We haven’t worked up the courage to try one yet. But clearly someone is, because these things are everywhere. And honestly, if you live in a village where the only other dinner option is foraging for wild fennel and hoping for the best, a machine-made four-cheese pizza doesn’t sound half bad.

Just don’t call it fast food.

It’s French fast food — which means the crust probably has opinions, the cheese has lineage, and somewhere, somehow, this all still makes sense.