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Read about these a while ago - ran across my first one "in the wild" today at a local 5 Guys. 

Pretty neat - the kids really enjoyed it.  I saw several older folks become very confused however. 

Jim

This machine has OVER 100 selections/flavors. Something for everyone!! I have only tried the Fanta Zero flavors as they are my favorites. Tried Sprite Zero Grape. Yech! Lemon-lime n Grape do not go together! LOL. Coke is working on scaled down versions one w/80 flavors, another w/35.

They are in several places around here, Burger King and a local place called Moe's. I always go with the old stand bye vanilla,cherry and Coke. It's an amazing machine!

I think this machine is called a Coke Freestyle. I've heard of them, but never seen one in person.

I bet a standard soda fountain can't hold a candle to these, price-wise. I'm guessing at least $10,000. As a restaurant or convenience store
owner, I would be concerned about previous flavor mixes left on the spout blending with the later flavors, unless I was convinced the machine
had a way to deal with that.

Wikipedia claims these things are leased for $300 a month more than a standard Coca-Cola fountain.  :jawdrop:

EDIT: according to howmuchisit.org, these cost around $2000 for the machine, not counting installation, etc, but note (emphasis added)-


Yeah, I don't think these will be showing up on craigslist anytime soon. I sometimes wonder whether soda companies should have such tight control over vending devices like this. Sounds like the special "syrups" or concentrates the machine uses are more expensive anyway.

Read more: http://www.howmuchisit.org/coke-freestyle-cost/  

Here's a couple other side notes about the Freestyle,

Coke enlisted Ferrari to design the dispensers cool appearance.
Coke also enlisted the medical profession to micro dose the syrup. These machines use syrup boxes the size of ink cartridges instead of the bulky 60 pound 5 gallon versions.
The only exception is they couldn't micro dose high fructose corn syrup, this remains in the back room feeding the dispenser.
This machine also reports sales and usage back to Atlanta via the internet and will also call the techies if it detects a problem.
As for the residual blending of flavors, this is not going to happen as the syrup is dispensed at the nozzle and a natural flushing occurs each time it is used. This type of multi use dispensing thru a single valve has been around for many years and has never been a problem.

I wouldn't dream about having one of these in your house, or finding one on craigslist, not going to happen unless your someone special with contacts high up in the Coke empire.

Interesting note on the Ferrari connection for the design.  It definitely has more 'flair' than the typical machine these days.

      Well you guys think like you want, but I'm gonna start searching Craigslist for a 35.  :biggrin:

It is cool.  I have used one once.

For my house though, there is just something special about pushing a crank and getting a glass bottle of pop out of a door...

When I get a fountain soda, I still mix flavors like when I was a kid. I came across one of these about a year ago and thought my head was gonna explode. :)

I buy these all the time from old widowed grannies who don't know what they have once their husbands have passed away.   :laugh:

Those machines are the coolest things ever. One of my beer accounts has one that I get to use twice a week. They come in both a red and a black version. I think I like them both equally. The cost is over $10,000 and I have heard different cost to the retailer on a monthly lease as they are not free to them. The syrup comes in and neat little container, looks similar to a 8 track tape. They don't have those messy bags. The syrup containers come UPS once ordered. Really really sharp.

When I said-


That was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I don't think anyone here has serious delusions of ever owning one. Coca-Cola doesn't really even "sell" a Freestyle, even to an approved business owner.

Coca-Cola makes a delicious product. As a company however, they really doesn't want anybody owning any of their commercial (vending) products without their express consent. I remember somebody here saying it was official Coke policy to have old machines (pre-packaged vendors) destroyed when taken out of service. I strongly suspect the bottlers thought it simply wasn't worth their trouble or money to actually follow through.

Given their druthers, 99.9% of us wouldn't have so much as a Vendo 83, or a Dole Director. Perhaps they no longer care about people in general owning older machines because they have no worthwhile means of stopping it.

This new-fangled contraption however, is different.


I'm sure it reports GPS coordinates (and not TomTom or Garmin consumer grade, either), internal/external operating temperature, fall detection, tamper proofing and theft attempts (with alarm), the whole nine yards. I wouldn't rule out live video streaming. If this thing is moved just 6 inches from where Coca-Cola placed it, they're going to know about it, and the person who moved it better have either their permission or a dang good reason for doing it.

I bet it won't even function without express electronic authorization from Coca-Cola. Well, they might permit a short emergency cycle in case the receiver at Coca-Cola is down, but I can't imagine they would let it function indefinitely without some form of corporate validation. Heck, Microsoft tried to do that with the Xbox One, and it is a consumer product.

Personally, I wouldn't want one anyway. It would be a major pain in the butt to keep working. Like other fountains, it deals with compressed CO2 at some point in delivery. Then there's the computer, running some proprietary OS that has no documentation available what so ever.

If you can get over the "unfairness" thing, there are actually very good reasons for a soda company to try to keep commercial products from being sold to consumers.

Could you imagine the headaches Coca-Cola would have from end-users complaining about things like they can't figure out why the machine is mixing lime and cherry into the Barq's root beer? Or that it is only dispensing plain water? Or that the touch screen won't work? The list goes on and on. If I were Coca-Cola, I certainly wouldn't want the hassle and potential catastrophes the could occur selling something like this to a home user. 

       It's going to take a pretty busy location to sell enough $1.00 soft drinks to pay off a $100,000.00 machine.

       I'll bet the same technology could be easily carried over to the nightclub industry, where they can charge $5.00 or more per drink.
The labor saved by reducing serving help would pay off a machine like this very quickly.

I first saw this machine about 6 months ago at a local taco place who I used to service when I worked for Coca-Cola.
This was the first day of operation and the owner who I know was standing next to it helping customers use it. I wish I could have seen it at a slower time as it was high noon when we chatted, I really wanted to get a look inside and see what it looked like. He let me in on all the info.
After hearing all this I contacted a Facebook friend who is a upper level executive at Coca-Cola USA Fountain Division and she confirmed everything that I was told.
My biggest question is shelf life of the concentrates, with so many flavors, lack of usage is a problem and shelf life is a big issue. with no HFCS in the concentrate I'm sure it's life is much longer than the 90 days for a typical syrup bag.
The other big issue is the startup cost with all the different flavors you have to buy, it has to cost thousands to for the initial setup just in syrup alone.
Back in my day it was all a restaurant could do to pay for 4-6 boxes of syrup to start there's which was around $250.

>>I buy these all the time from old widowed grannies who don't know what they have once their husbands have passed away.

Hopefully brought home in that old station wagon out in the back :-)
Creighton

Been to Vegas lately Glen? Try $10-$15 per beverage in some establishments.
It would also be easier to limit the number of drinks a customer orders. Me....I like befriending the BT with tips and getting a heavy hand, which would be impossible with this guy. :down: