A Pizza Vending Machine Is Now Open Near UT Austin Campus for All Your Late-Night Needs

A new pizza vending machine, Basil Street, arrived at the Skyloft apartments near the University of Texas campus over the summer. The pizza vending machine is located in the lobby of the apartment complex at 507 West 23rd Street, next to the leasing office.

Basil Street offers 10-inch, thin-crust pizzas in three varieties — cheese, pepperoni, and supreme with cheese, sausage, pepperoni, red and green bell peppers — as well as rotating monthly pizza like buffalo chicken. The pizzas range from $4.95 for a cheese pizza to $14.95. The company makes the pizzas offsite and they are flash-frozen and stored in the machine until ordered. Customers make their selection via touch screen and the pizzas are ready in about three minutes. Sensors in the machine tell Basil Street when a type of pizza is running low, and an employee will come to restock.

Basil Street Pizza/Official

This location of Basil Street is part of a 50-unit roll out nationwide this year, after the company raised $10 million in 2020 (CEO Deglin Kenealy has a Master’s degree from Stanford). This is the second Texas location of Basil Street, with the first at Duke’s Truck Stop in Canton, Texas. Reviews of Basil Street’s Denver location, which was one of the first to roll out, have been hesitantly positive, ranging from “not bad at all” to “the pizza I wish had existed” in college. One complaint is that the pizzas are not visible while being made — as opposed to South First’s Show Me Pizza in Austin.

Pizza vending machines have been around for a while, and have garnered rabid fans as well as horrified detractors. Austin is also getting its first dumpling automat sometime soon.

Basil Street is, predictably, open 24/7.

• Basil Street [Official]