CAFE
19
[REVIEW]
Rise of the Machines Alibi Cookies delivers hot and sweet treats with the help of a friendly robot Written by
CHERYL BAEHR Alibi Cookies 1136 Tamm Avenue. Tues.-Sun. noon-10 p.m. (Closed Mondays.) Cookie Bot available 24/7.
L
ike a lot of people during the first weeks of the pandemic, Mike Evans found himself stuck in his home with nothing to do but eat, drink and doomscroll through social media. Out of work from his jobs DJing, running a party bus and working in restaurants, Evans spent just about every day grilling a rack of ribs, drinking a twelve-pack of beer and a lot of Jameson, and wondering how he was going to keep his lights on. To keep his mind occupied, he went so far down the Facebook rabbit hole he jokes that he thinks he reached its end. However, rather than finding the flesh-eating demon we all know lurks in those depths, Evans found his saving grace: an article about vending machines in Japan. Struck by the impressive array of vending-machine fare available on the other side of the world, Evans was intrigued. Why didn’t the United States have such a robust vending-machine culture, one that stretched beyond stale trail-mix packets, chips and candy bars? From what he saw, the wide array of machines made it possible to offer just about anything out of them — even his favorite treat, warm cookies. Evans immediately began doing some research and was shocked by what he’d found: No one had yet invented a warm-cookie vending machine. To him, it seemed like such a no-brainer; having spent a majority of his working life surrounded by people eating, drinking and being merry,
Alibi Cookies owner Mike Evans is the mastermind behind the Cookie Bot. | MABEL SUEN
What strikes you when you grab the box from the machine is that it is indeed warm. a convenient, novel way to get a warm and tasty sweet treat would surely be a runaway hit. Once he saw that such a thing didn’t exist, he started experimenting at his house by pulling apart a mini fridge and putting a heater in it. Convinced by his prototype that it could actually work, he contacted a vending-machine manufacturer in Japan and spent the next six months going back and forth with different design ideas. After a lot of work, laughable Google translate exchanges, and trial and error, Evans plugged in his first warm-cookie vending machine, dubbed Cookie Bot, on September 4, 2020. Even before Cookie Bot made its way across the Pacific, Evans knew there had to be much more
The warm cookies come in three packs. | MABEL SUEN to his business than the machine. A self-described “cookie monster,” he has loved every kind of cookie for as long as he can remember and knew that, if he was going to fill a robotic machine with baked goods, they would have to be delicious. Determined to be a cookie company first and a novelty second, he founded Alibi Cookies and got to work perfecting his recipe. Once he was satisfied he had it just
riverfronttimes.com
right he launched Alibi’s website for online sales, just a few weeks before Cookie Bot came online. Rather than reinventing the cookie wheel (outside of his unique way of delivering them), Evans relied on tried-and-true recipes of classic varieties to fill Alibi’s shelves and Cookie Bot’s tummy. However, he did have to navigate a lot of trial and er-
JANUARY 19-25, 2022
Continued on pg 20
RIVERFRONT TIMES
19
