Keep your hands off my bodega


Olde Hornet

Well-Known Member
I love the Bodegas in New York - I wont use the automated ones.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/....html?event=event25&s_campaign=sm_gp&hl=en-US

Can a glorified vending machine save the last bottle of my favorite drink for me? Will it offer kids a refuge from bullies? Can it anchor a community and give immigrants a piece of the American dream that they can pass on to their children?

If Bodega’s founders understood real bodegas, they’d know that these neighborhood mainstays, staples of American small business, can’t be easily replaced.

Conceived by former Google employees Paul McDonald and Ashwath Rajan, Bodega is a 5-foot wide pantry box packed with nonperishable goods. Users open it with a smartphone app and pick out what they want, while cameras record everything. Like ride-hailing services, purchases are charged directly to consumers’ credit cards. After months of testing in dorms, apartment lobbies, and offices, Bodega recently launched 50 locations on the West Coast.

With funding from deep-pocketed investors, McDonald told a Fast Company reporter that he and Rajan hope to have more than 1,000 of these high-tech kiosks available nationwide by the end of next year.
 
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