Yes, it must be the start of baseball season, as I’ve managed to make 4 posts in a rowthat are food related, but also connected to baseball. However, this one is just too interesting to pass up. From The Boston Herald, via The Slanch Report, comes news that Fenway Park has installed a new hot dog vending machine, called the “Hot Nosh.” The machine will cook and dispense all-beef, glatt kosher hot dogs in under a minute.

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Huh? A hot dog vending machine? On the one hand I’m sure you’re thinking that sounds disgusting, but c’mon, is a hot dog really any less processed and full of preservatives than anything else you’d get out of a vending machine? So how does this new fangled contraption work?

The Hot Nosh vending machine will be under the supervision of the KOF-K kosher certification agency. It sears and cooks the refrigerated hot dogs using a special infrared heating element and warms the buns before dropping them into a Styrofoam container.

Styrofoam? Really? Really? So this company is all about helping people adhere to a strict dietary code, but they can’t be bothered to stop using a material that puts holes in the ozone layer?

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Seriously though, a vending machine hot dog? I implore each and every Boston based So Good reader: please, please head over to Fenway and send me some pictures/reports about this vending machine. How does an infrared heated kosher hot dog from a vending machine taste? How does the machine work? Is it a machine devoted totally to hot dogs, or does it look like the machine above, with a variety of foods? Can you see the hot dog being made in front of you? Or does it just pop out of a slot at the bottom?

8 Responses

  2. zev

    I have actually tried these in NY they are incredibly delicious..and fresh…..

    There are 2 machines I believe. One does the hot dogs the other does food items like pizza, mozarella sticks, onion rings, knishes, etc…

    Reply
  3. B

    I don’t know … this kinda makes my bullshit detector tick a little. While I can perhaps see the fan-accommodating (read: moneymaking-scheme-loving) management at Fenway wanting to accommodate guests with specific dietary needs, I’m not sure that this is how they would (or are) going about it. I first thought that a hot dog vending machine wasn’t likely to exist, but the evidence (including video) proves me wrong. Still, though, at a park that has a dog named after it, would this radical a departure from tradition be the way they’d go about it? My doubt, combined with the fact that I can’t google up any news articles about this before April Fool’s day, make me seriously wonder about this. I may be going to Fenway next week, though, so if I do, perhaps you’ll have an eyewitness reporter.

    Reply
  5. Jack Mellon

    I have seen and used these machines quite often in NY first off the report is wrong the hot dog is selivered in a clear plastic tray and each hot dog is individually wrapped. When your at a ballpark and you order a hot dog you have no idea where it came from other than the guy sticking his hand in the box while he’s dripping of sweat. This machine only does hot dogs.

    The other machine has 5 choices and everything in that machine id stored fully cooked and frozen. Each food is prepared in 90 seconds or less. I have tried most items and I have to say that each one is pretty damn good.

    Reply
  6. Ari

    I have tried the machine at Fenway. The machine cooks your hot dog in front of you (you can see it through a window), and then it delivers it in a plastic tray. The cost is $5. It is a decent hot dog (although if you like your hot dogs grilled well-done, like I do, you will be disappointed). Ketchup and mustard packets are available from the machine as well. The machine franchisee was there operating the machine that day, and he said that Fenway was planning to install at least one or two additional machines, with probably one of those being a knish machine…

    Reply

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