Vending Machines

A couple of our tenants have requested that we install vending machines in my folks' building in Muskoka.  There is a fabulous food truck called Sully's on site for lunches spring, summer and fall but there is no other food offering in the building.  Anything you might want to purchase requires getting into a car.

It is an interesting process to assess vending machine options and evaluate what your tenants might want.  There are healthy options including high protein drinks, smoothies and trail mix type offerings, which seem appropriate for a fitness club or a downtown office with lots of health conscious people.  There are your typical pop machines that have been common since I was a girl.  There are snack dispensers filled with peanuts and M&Ms where you turn the knob. Those always bring to my mind children with dirty fingers.  There is the standard brown vending machine with chips in top and chocolate bars underneath.  Some newer drink machines dispense Gatorade, Powerade, water and juice.  And they now have a hybrid machine that supplies snacks up top and cold drinks in bottom, looking like something you would have seen on the Starship Enterprise.

Hockey rinks in Toronto are replete with vending machines.  As I am paying $2.75 for a bottle of Gatorade I mentally scold myself for not buying enough bottles for $1.00 each at the grocery store.  York Mills and Hodgson Arenas, both City of Toronto rinks, have vending machines that are usually empty or out of order.  Chesswood, ScotiaBank Pond and the Canlan rinks, all privately owned, have well stocked, well oiled machines dispensing all sorts of options at jacked up prices for their captive audiences.

I suspect it will take trial and error to determine what our tenants will find most appealing. Once we get it right I expect it will be a positive addition to the building.