TTC subway station now has a robot juice-making machine and it's actually good

A busy TTC subway station has axed its ATM in favour of a fresh-squeezed orange juice vending machine, because who even uses cash anymore?

And if you, like many others, I'm sure, are wondering about the quality and viability of a robotic device containing a vat of fresh oranges in the middle of a grimy transit hub, we are here to give you the lowdown on this new fresh juice spot on Line 2.

The former All Trans Credit Union Limited "Smart Cash" machine on the concourse level of Main Street subway station has switched from dispensing bills to squeezing fruit. 

The new JusFres vending machine joins the company's 13 other vending machines in Toronto. However, the business has a much larger footprint in B.C., with 25 machines in Vancouver and one more in Kelowna.

Interestingly, most of JusFres' Vancouver locations are housed within SkyTrain stations, meaning that if JusFres pursues the same model in Toronto, this Main Street Station location could be the first of many on the TTC.

The machine advertises "100 per cent natural" and "freshly squeezed" orange juice, offering "your daily boost of vitamin C" for $4.99 per serving. And while we weren't exactly doubting those claims, something about the combination of Main Street station and the word "fresh" seemed a somewhat incompatible juxtaposition. 

But if it's possible to serve edible robot-cooked pizza from a subway station, juice made from a single ingredient — itself visible through a glass window — should be a manageable enough job for an automated vending machine.

So, with lettuce already on the no-eat list, what's the worst a glass of subway station orange juice could do? We set out for an answer.

The roughly $5 price tag will set you back more than a glass of Minute Maid, but the difference is that this juice was actually part of an orange only seconds earlier, rather than the industry standard of juice that has been frozen, concentrated, and reconstituted into something vaguely resembling actual orange juice.

The verdict?

If you've ever had freshly-squeezed orange juice, this is…well...exactly that. 

Our report from the field concluded that the orange juice, as one would expect, tastes like oranges. It has a fresher, sweeter flavour than store-bought juice, lacking the distinctive tang of something bottled from concentrate.

Does its presence in a busy, admittedly dirty subway station take away from the experience? Not necessarily, though the relatively new machine hasn't yet been put to much of a test in terms of maintenance or wear and tear in a busy public space.

Where the results fall a bit short, though, is the price. At $4.99, the cup of juice is small. You are definitely paying for quality over quantity here, and as someone who lived through the 2010s cold-pressed juice craze (while never fully grasping what cold-pressed even means), I've seen steeper prices out there for a small serving of juice that wasn't even squeezed before my eyes.

@blogto Would you try the TTC subway station orange juice? 🍊 #toronto #ttc #transit #torontotransit #fyp ♬ TRADER - Izabella Creator BM

So, if you need a quick hit of vitamin C at Main Street Station and are willing to take the $5 hit to your wallet, I'd say go for it.