There’s a Spooky Scene at the Pix-O-Matic All-Night Dessert Vending Machines

Seven grinning skeletons are seated around a picnic table, surrounded by empty bottles of Champagne.

Skelton party at Pix-O-Matic. (Aaron Mesh)
By Aaron Mesh

You get the urge for a midnight mousse, so you amble down to the Pix-O-Matic all-night dessert vending machines. You’re inserting a credit card when you get the feeling that somebody’s watching. There, behind wooden slats: Seven grinning skeletons are seated around a picnic table, surrounded by empty bottles of Champagne. One ghoul wears a Russian fur hat with a “Moscow Mitch” campaign button. Dance pop plays overhead. It looks like the afterparty to the Last Supper.

The year-round tableau started as a Halloween display, says Pix-O-Matic founder and pastry chef Cheryl Wakerhauser.

“They got off their shift on Halloween in 2020 and they haven’t left yet,” she says. “I keep telling them to go home.”

Wakerhauser, who has mostly physically recovered from a dog mauling that made headlines in April, says she delights in adding unexpected treats to the 24-hour vending machines: Dinosaur nightlights. Cat-stripe socks. Macarons for dogs. She says the skeleton party is just another surprise: “You walk up, you’re not expecting to see that and you just start laughing.”

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