A Vending Family
Before I was tall enough to see over a route truck's tailgate, I was packing boxes for my brother's drivers — counting cases, restocking pallets, learning what moved fast and what came back stale. Vending isn't a business I picked up later. It's the one I grew up inside.
Three of my siblings are in this trade too — currently or previously — running routes, working accounts, building their own corners of the food and vending world. We're a food family. The conversations at our table have always been about products, accounts, equipment, what's working, what isn't. When you spend your childhood listening to that, you absorb how the business actually runs — the things that don't show up in a sales pitch.
What I noticed once I started spending real time in the Chicago market is that the gap between what workplaces want and what most operators deliver is wider here than it should be. Empty machines. Slow service responses. Product mixes that haven't been touched in years. None of that is hard to fix. It just requires showing up — which is harder than it sounds when you're running a route on autopilot.
Why I Started VendingChicago
I launched VendingChicago.com because I wanted a Chicago-focused vending brand that answers the phone, shows up on time, and treats a 50-person office with the same attention as a 500-person manufacturing plant. The name is the promise — a vending brand for Chicago, run by someone whose family has been doing this work for a generation.
We provide vending machines and micro-markets to businesses across the Chicago metro — Cook, DuPage, Will, and Kane counties. Snack and drink machines for offices and warehouses, fresh-food micro-markets for larger workplaces, and the kind of consistent restocking and service that keeps a break room from becoming a complaint. If that's what you're looking for, get in touch.